Jenny and Tawana's Engagement Party

Jenny and Tawana
Beautiful Engagement Cake!
The girls in the kitchen! (Christine, Jenny, Tawana and Pam)
Danielle and Christine
Phil and Mike "thinking" about playing!
Missy and Jeremy
Beautiful Addysen
Addysen and mom
Yum! Chocolate!
Fruit Punch Fountain
Eric and Lindsay
Herb
The girls- all smiles!!!!

Sunday afternoon, some of the family here in Arizona gathered at Chris and Pam's to help Jenny and Tawana announce/celebrate their relationship and commitment to each other. All involved in planning the party did a very nice job. They had a milk chocolate fountain with strawberries and pretzels, a 3-tiered drink fountain, we all brought a dish, plenty of snacks and had hamburgers on the grill. Plus a beautiful 3 tiered cake with game pieces all over it. Jenny mentioned that her and Tawana love to play board and card games.

It was nice to see the family. We hadn't been all together since May, when Tina and Alicia were out for a visit. We were missing some family members for this occasion. Some of the choices that we make in life aren't always approved by all. But as a family, we need to let each other know that we care and love each other.

Addysen, AJ and Danielle's daughter, is just so darned cute! She's just like a marshmallow and just so happy! They will be moving into their new house at the end of this week. They sound excited about the move!

Eric and Lindsay started back at teaching this week. Lindsay said that the students will be in next week. Eric is taking some classes for his masters, so it sounds like they have pretty busy schedules. Christine is recuperating well from her knee replacement. She will be returning back to her nursing job in the middle of September. For now though she is still at the physical therapists, three times a week and being pushed to the brink of tears. Herb went back to work last week, after being off for 12 weeks. He looks good and is following his Dr's plan.

Chris and Pam look like they are doing well and getting to do some babysitting! What fun that would be! (no rush though Mike and Missy!!!) They now have 4 dogs! I would go nuts but Pam loves it.

Phil, myself, Mike and Missy were there, as well as Missy's new boyfriend- Jeremy. We got to meet Jeremy at our house before we left to go over to the party.

Busy Weekend- Where did the time go?

Missy has been staying with us since last weekend because the breaker keeps popping the air conditioner off. The "plan" was to go over yesterday (Sat) and check the breakers, replace if needed, and buy and install a new dishwasher. The dishwasher at the condo hasn't worked now for quite some time. Friday, Phil called me to say that he had to work for awhile on Saturday, so we altered the plans.

New plan was to have me go to Lowes to buy the new dishwasher and for Mike to meet Missy and I over there so that he could help us carry it upstairs. Turns out that they are pretty darn light weight and Mike carried it up himself. Now everything was ready for Phil to come by after work to get the job done! It started to get pretty late in the afternoon, and Phil had been at work, way longer than he thought (11 hrs) so I could see plans changing again!

New plan was for us to get up early this morning- Phil's birthday- and start the work over there. After some errands, we ended up over at the condo. The dishwasher did get installed, but it turns out that the breakers are so old that we will have to go to an electrical supply company. We ran to Lowes and Home Depot- neither of which carried the right ones. There are some arcing burns on the 40amp and 50amp so hopefully replacing them will solve the problem. We brought the "smart" ladder over there for Phil to check out the unit on the roof. Our ladder bends in half and has extension coming out of both ends so it just about reached the top of the second story of the condo! Pretty darn scary! I was leaning over the railing upstairs to keep pressure on the ladder towards the wall as Phil was climbing up. Once he got to the top, the saltillo tiles were so flippin hot that Phil couldn't climb onto the roof. Keep your fingers crossed that the breakers solve the problem.

New plan now is for Phil to pick up breakers on the way home from work tomorrow and to have Mike meet him over there.

We didn't get back home until almost the dinner hour. Mike and Missy met us over here about 6:00pm and I ordered pizza and wings for Phil's birthday dinner. Yesterday while I was out, I picked up a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream cake from Dairy Queen for Phil's birthday dessert.

Where did the weekend go!!!!! Happy "56th" Birthday Phil!

Today We Went Visting

Both Phil and I were off today, so we had discussed going out. Well it was a very slow start, pretty much for both of us. I may have gotten up later than him but he ended up taking a nap, and then we got watching some TV. So needless to say, next thing we knew it was 4:30pm and we hadn't left the house yet. I did take some garbage outside this afternoon and ran back in to where it was cool. Very hot!!! and muggy!!! today. We are in our monsoon season here now and boy can you feel it today!

We left the house at 4:30pm and decided that we would swing by Mike's house for a quick visit. It had been awhile since our last visit and I was anxious to see some molding that he had added to his kitchen cabinets. Very nice job! He had just gotten back from the gym when we stopped by. He had plans to meet friend's in Phoenix tonight. One of Karen's friends boyfriends, had a "gig" at one of the clubs down there this weekend.

Missy was up at the lake today with some friends and had a great time! This was pretty much the first time that she has been outside in the sun for a prolonged period of time since her burn accident. She has been very careful to wear a high SPF cover when she is out but of course today she was doing boating activities so it all washed off. She called me on her way home to say that her hands had turned bright red and purple. Hope that it isn't permanent! A bunch of her friends are going our tonight to celebrate another friend's 40th birthday tonight. She'll be busy the rest of the weekend writing 3 briefs for her second summer class at ASU. She finished up her other class last Monday.

After we left Mike's we headed south and stopped for a bite to eat in Ocotillo. We were pretty close to Herb and Christine's, so after we left the restaurant, Phil called to see if they were up for company. We were about 3 minutes from their gated community, when the clouds had moved in and decided to drop buckets of rain on top of us. Then the winds came! What a mess. As we were sitting at the gate to go into their neighborhood, one of the trees just split down the center and the street was filling up with water quickly! We had a very nice visit. Christine had knee replacement surgery last Wednesday, so she was laid up in bed and Herb is three weeks into treatments and doing well. On our way home, we passed alot of tree limb debris on the streets. When we got back to our house, about 25 miles away, it was bone dry! Go figure!

"Pimping" on a Saturday!

Phil calls it pimping, when you just go out and do whatever! Well, that's what we did yesterday. We took the US60 out past Gold Canyon and then picked up SR79 down to Florence, AZ. Florence isn't a lot to look at but they have made quite a few movies there and it is the location of the Arizona State Prison. We drove by the drug store that James Garner owned in "Murphy's Romance" with Sally Field. We then headed west on Hunt Highway about 16 miles and took a tour of Sun City Anthem @ Merrill Ranch, an over 55 yr old active adult community. Just pimping! as Phil would say! Then we stopped by the Queen Creek Olive Mill for some of Phil's favorite garlic stuffed olives and some chili olive oil that he loves his eggs fried in. And we picked up some misc other goodies as well! When we got home we were still pretty stuffed sampling olives so I fried up one zuchinni that a friend from work had brought in. It was huge and I got two of them. He has a home garden that is 1000 sq ft and has been getting 6 huge zuchinni a week out of there. Needless to say, he is zuchinnied out!

Mike's Birthday- 33 Years Old

Yesterday was Mike's 33rd birthday. June has always been a full month of birthdays for us, 3 of them! We celebrated Mike's birthday with his dinner of choice, Barro's pizza and wings and then for dessert, Oreo Blizzard Ice Cream Cake from Dairy Queen. We also watched a rental movie. Missy made it over to the house just in time for the movie (she had classes) and reheated pizza! From our house, Mike was going out to meet a friend for a few drinks.

I sure don't know where all the years have gone. They go by so fast anymore!

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to all the Dad's in the family! Phil's day started off with Missy taking him to Denny's for breakfast this morning. If you remember, Missy took me out for breakfast for Mother's Day but said we needed to get there early. We met up at 7am. Also, remember that I mentioned in my last post that Missy celebrated her birthday until the "wee" hours the night before. So you can see where I'm going with this! Phil and Missy left the house close to 10am. Actually though, they got in and out pretty fast, for that late start.

The kids got Phil a Crosman Powermaster 66
for him to "play" with in the backyard. He can pretend that he has his own wild kingdom back there, and "bag" some big ones!!!

For dinner, hamburgers on the grill with beans and potato salad and then a movie. The kids left around 9pm.

Happy 29th Birthday to Missy!

Saturday was Missy's 29th birthday. She had to put in about 4 hrs at job 2 in the morning. After that she met a new friend for coffee for a few hours, then had a 4:30pm hair app't. She got to the house about 6pm. Mike got here about 5:30pm. I ran out to Chipotle's for dinner (her request). Awesome burritos, with the greatest lime cilantro white rice. Yum! Her requested movie was "New in Town" with Renee Z. and Harry Connick Jr. And the dessert of her choice was french velvet pie from Marie Callendars. (on sale now for $6.99ea plus pie plate dep!). Both Mike and Missy had seperate plans with friend's last night, so about 9pm Mike took Missy to where her friends were meeting and dropped her off. I had offered to be her DD. She called around 2am for her pickup. She had a great time out!

We get to do this all over again on Wednesday, for Mike's birthday! Mike mentioned having wing dings for his!