Our First Scorpion

I was in the Arizona room when I spotted it. I wasn't too afraid since it looked dead already. But just to make sure I called Mike to come and kill it. He entered the room very calmly which is not what I expected. Number 1: He isn't calm when it comes to problems. Number 2: He's been especially fearful of encountering a scorpion ever since we got here. He took one look and agreed it looked like a scorpion.

I ordered him to go put on shoes and make sure it was dead. He obeyed and returned with his heaviest shoes and he stomped, and stomped, and squashed it dead.

As I was sweeping it into the dustpan I noticed it looked a little different than I had earlier thought. As it turned out - it wasn't a scorpion after all. In fact, it wasn't any kind of insect. I'm embarrassed to say that Mike and I had successfully murdered our first leaf!

Rookies from the Rockies!

Kenny and Me - Christmas -2005

Kenny is our oldest child. He lives in Connecticut and works at Pratt Whitney. He has been in Connecticut about eight years, and lived in Seattle prior to moving to the east coast. He worked at Boeing in the Seattle area.

He is a wonderful musician, and artist! And, a wonderful son in general.

The pictures were taken at our Clinton Home. Check at that snow! We hardly ever get snow in Clinton, that is more than a few inches.

I said one day that we didn't ever shovel show, and Brian our youngest child said, "what do you mean, I've shoveled six times this year." I answered, "Yeah, with a broom."

There was absolutely no snow when Kenny arrived and the next day it snowed all day long, and we ended up with 2 feet of snow! That snow lasted until March! We had a little deer in the yard, and the snow would get below the deer's nose, and go right back over it again.

By March, it got so hot that one day the snow was up to the deer's nose and two days later it was completely gone.

I was dog tending, and getting paid for it!

Second offer on home

We've been in Arizona about a month now waiting for our home to sale in Utah.

We had an offer a few months ago but it fell apart just before we left.

We received an offer last evening from the same buyer. Except, that she has reduced her offer price $5000 and has a bunch of conditions we can't except. She had odd conditions on the previous offer as well.

We will be giving a counter-offer this afternoon, and hope we can come up with something more fair.

Unfortunately, she didn't accept our counter or make a new offer as we had expected. Hindsight tells me we should have excepted the offer as written.

Could have been a water disaster!

We almost had a disaster!

While we were sleeping Mike awoke and couldn't get back to sleep. He left our bed and went into the guest room.

He fell back to sleep but soon was awakened by the cell phone. It was 1:00 A.M. and he was naturally shaken since only our children would be calling our cell phone and they wouldn't call in the middle of the night unless there was an emergency. Strangely enough, When he answered the phone, no one was there.

He went back to bed but couldn't sleep. Suddenly, he heard a swishing sound coming from the mud-room next to the bedroom he was in. (There are three bedrooms in the house. It's more than a coincidence that he went to that bedroom.)

As he entered the mud-room he noticed the sink was full of water and spilling onto the Parquet floor, and within minutes would have reached the hallway where we had just laid new carpet two days earlier.

Upon exploring the sink he found the drain had been plugged. He drained the sink and mopped up the water, and then finally was able to sleep.

The following morning as he related the details I remembered I had plugged the sink. I had absolutely no reason for doing that and have no idea why I left the plug there.

Mike found the number of the caller and reached a tax service in Salt Lake City, Utah. The man who answered said he couldn't imagine who would have used the phone at that hour of the morning. And assumed it was one of the cleaning people. We're led to believe that someone called a wrong number, but it is odd that no one was there when he answered.

I believe we had a guardian angel watching! (That's my story and I'm sticking to it.)

Thankfully, our carpet wasn't touched. In fact, our home is alright. Water can do considerable damage to walls and other things as well as carpet.

Oh, why was the sink filling up? We have a soft water unit that was recycling and the water empties into that sink.

Bottom line: We will be very careful to keep our sink drain free from now on.

Swap meet

Our first trip to the swap-meet was with George and Nancy. We had a good time wandering around, mostly window shopping, but we did buy a few items we wanted.

My favorite item was a large artificial Azalea plant that I put on my glass table in the Arizona room. It's so large it fills the entire middle of the table. The table is round and it looks very pretty.

I'd like to find artificial plants that look like bougainvillea. It is my favorite plant in Arizona. And this was the closest I could come to find one.

1st Trip to the commissary

Burr! The storm has really turned the valley cold. The temperature is 58 degrees but there is a very cold wind that is making us miserable.

We drove west to Luke Air Force Base for the first time since we moved here. We enjoyed shopping and saved approximately $90.

We enjoyed the trip and it is a trip. It's about an hour each way.
We got home before rush hour and made good time. Afterwards, we ate at the Old Country Buffet.

It was good and the restaurant was filled with snow-birds. Every restaurant is like this no matter what day or time you go.

Christmas in Clinton - 2005

Peggy's always cold! Even In Arizona

Christmas, means family. These are a few pictures of our Clinton home and what it looked like at Christmas time, without the family members in it.

We love getting together, and have lots of pictures of our children, grandchildren, and other extended family members. I will add those pictures as soon as I find them. They are hidden in this computer some place.




Steve Page

Putting up Christmas

We are in the Christmas mood now. We spent the day and evening putting up our Christmas decorations. They look beautiful! It was fun decorating the tree, etc. I had a good time decorating the Arizona room. It looks very festive.

The Arizona room is on the other side of the window behind the tree. It is a pass-through window, which makes it easy to pass items like groceries or food when eating out there.

The door to get to the Arizona room is behind the hutch you can see. So it is very convenient.

Our new table for the Arizona room came on Tuesday. It's glass and rod-iron.

A storm came through and really cooled things down though so we can't go out and eat in the Arizona room which is a screened room.

We finally have the table and we can't eat at it. Oh Well, the temperatures are supposed to be back in the 70's in the next three days and we will have an opportunity to go out and enjoy the room again. Wrong!

Our First Christmas In Arizona

We loved spending Christmas In Arizona, except for one very important thing. Our children were all in Utah! Except for Kenny, who lives in Connecticut. But, those little ones we love so much, 19 of them, are all in Utah.

We plan to be in Ogden this year for Christmas 2007. It will be nice to be with the family! We spent the day with John and Sherri and their family last Christmas. We love being with them too.

Mesa Temple At Christmas

George and Nancy, Tony and Charlie, and Mike and I spent an evening at the Mesa Temple grounds during the Christmas season 2006.

We had a wonderful dinner first at a very nice Mexican Restaurant in Mesa, drove by all the statutes that are up and down main street in Mesa. And then spent the remainder of the evening at the Temple enjoying the lights and decorations, a concert choir, and the visitor center.