A day in the beautiful desert

Mark and I spent the day at the Desert Botanical Gardens and really enjoyed its spectacular beauty!  I don't know why we had never gone before but glad we finally did.  Pics below of some of the sights!


The weather has still been a bit on the cold side but today was close to 70 and perfect for walking around the desert.  Would not have wanted it warmer.  This week-end we will see 80 and there will probably be no turning back after that! 

Spring training has begun and we plan to go to a game this Friday.  We both love the sunshine, hot dogs and beer.  Oh, and Mark enjoys the game, too.  :-)  I am more into people watching! 

Next week we are escaping the Valley for three days and heading to Laughlin for some casino fun.  We originally were driving to Vegas then decided to just do Laughlin.  Less congestion and a bit more relaxing for us old folks!  :-)  Perhaps Las Vegas next winter! 

March 13th Andy and his brothers are coming for a few days of BB fun.  I thought that a perfect time to fly the coop and head to Peoria and see my daughter and grandchildren.  I have been watching videos that Megan puts up of Ryan and we have been Facetiming with them and I am missing out on a lot of the stuff that I got to see Drew and Kayley do at that age.  I cannot WAIT to get there!  Mark is in charge of the house and the Thiel boys while I am away.  :-) 

Matt called and said he did The Trek up the Tower in Omaha last Saturday.  It is a timed event that has you running up 40 flights of stairs.  Yikes!  He did well enough to qualify for the elite group next year so he was pretty happy about that achievement.  I was just happy he didn't have a heart attack on the way up!  I realize he is in great shape but 40 flights as fast as you can make it seems to be pushing it!  And to think I was always proud of just taking the stairs over the escalator at the airport.  Ha!

Pics from our day at the beautiful Botanical center"

Huge sculptures of the 4 seasons.  Here is "winter"

Mark deciding which way to go

Sculpture of "autumn"

Spring!  (Summer didn't turn out!)

Lovely little patio for our lunch.

Gorgeous sundial.  As you can see, we were there at 1:00!

Glass sculpture

This rock sculpture had a name but do you think I can think of it?!?!?

It's been a long time!

I see it has been quite awhile since my last post.  We have been busy enjoying AZ but nothing special to put into a blog post!  The weather has been up and down here these past few weeks.  Cold and rainy and then sunny and beautiful.  The latter more common than the former but AZ can always take any rain it can get.  I believe they said they met their average yearly total over those few days of rain in January!  The desert was extremely dry, even by "desert" standards, so this bodes well for a valley full of gorgeous blooms in March.  I look forward to hiking that time of the year.

Mark and I spent 3 days at the Phoenix Open and enjoyed every minute of it.  It is such a fun event although I would estimate that 60% of the visitors knew nothing about golf and everything about how to have a good time!  I got a kick out of all the young girls in their stiletto heals trying to navigate around all the people.  Mark got a kick out of all the cleavage they had on display while trotting around in those shoes.  :)  I guess it must be the place to see and be seen!  As for the golf, the course provided players with ample birdie opportunities so scores were very low.  Phil won the event and the crowd was pulling for their ASU grad every day.  I am sure he felt like a rock star here with all the adoring fans. 

We continue to go to the gym several times per week.  I don't know if I am getting any stronger but I can open my own jars without having to ask Mark for help now so it must be working.  :-)  We really enjoy the workouts that Matt provided for us and am still rather shocked that we are going so faithfully.  Now....what to do when we return to Iowa with the closest gym MILES away?  I might have to get my farmer to buy a home gym for those months!

I am SO lonesome for Drew, Kayley and Ryan.  We do skype (facetime) with them so that helps so much but not being able to hug them and play with them is extremely hard on old granny.  They are coming here over spring break and we are excited about that but Drew's spring break isn't until the end of March so that seems very far away....

Some random pics from the past few weeks:

Hiking at Spur Cross in Cave Creek

Spur Cross scenery

Sister Sharon getting taped up after a fall off the trail!  It could have been way worse!

Mark and I went with friends to Turf Paradise for horse racing, always a fun day!

Hiking friends at Cave Creek

Green #9 at the Phoenix Open

Mark getting ready for the first golfers to come through.

Fairway #9