ARIZONA!!!

The home school group where I teach beginning strings had spring break the first week of March and the English classes for the Afghanistan community is on Ramadan break so I decided I would fly to Arizona to visit my sister from March 4 until tomorrow, the 10th. I flew out Tuesday afternoon in a pouring rainstorm. Happily, not severe weather - which was a possibility. I was in B seating but I still managed to snag a window seat on the second row! And I saw some beautiful sights on my flight - when I wasn't watching Moana 2. 

Amy picked me up from Sky Harbor and I spent the night at her place in Mesa. She and I took a lovely little walk around her neighborhood Wednesday morning where I saw these gorgeous bougainvillea. 

I also picked lemons, oranges and tangerines to bring back to Missouri. Juli drove down from Payson that morning and we loaded up Amy's Toyota Highlander and headed off to adventures for the next couple of days. 

Our first stop was to the Binghampton cemetery in Tucson to show Amy where mom and dad were buried. She and Cory had gone there earlier and couldn't find the tombstones. We also visited my grandparents stones.

We ate lunch at a Culvers, drove by the airplane graveyard in south Tucson,

 and then drove to Kartchner Caverns. We took a fascinating tour given by a very knowledgeable guide. Sadly, in order to preserve the cave, we couldn't bring cameras or phones so I just bought a postcard and took a photo at the entrance.

Juli had reserved an AirBnB in Sierra Vista for two days and it was a very nice one - beautifully decorated and well equipped. Juli and Amy had their own rooms and I slept on a roomy couch. After settling in, we shopped for some breakfast items, ate a light meal and watched Leap Year that evening for Amy's sake who had never seen it and neither Juli nor I minded watching it again.  We had a beautiful sky that evening. Sierra Vista is the same altitude as Payson and Prescott and it is nestled up against a beautiful mountain that is high enough for pine trees (although, there were no pines in the town - just lots of cypress trees as you can see in the photo)

Thursday morning, we drove down to Bisbee, a cute little touristy town that originated in the 1800's from copper mining. We visited a well curated museum and wandered around the shops. We were impressed at how the residents maintained their cute little hundred-year old homes. We found a narrow set of stairs lined with art work. Fun!

We returned to Sierra Vista (only 20 minutes from Bisbee) for a Mexican food lunch before driving to nearby Ramsey Canyon (in that mountain I was telling you about). It is owned and maintained by the Nature Conservancy and we enjoyed a lovely half-mile hike along a well maintained self-guided trail with interesting points of interest along the way. We also saw deer. Note the coats - it was chilly-ish.

 

That evening, we had a very nice visit with cousin Mona Varga who lives in Sierra Vista.

Friday morning, we checked out of the AirBnB and drove to Tombstone. We didn't plan to stay long and catch the gunfight and other attractions and, it was so windy and cold due to a storm front coming in so we left even earlier than anticipated. Tombstone was also a mining town.

Our next stop was to continue east to the Chiracahua National Monument. It is basically a mountain range with cool rock formations - a lot like Bryce Canyon National Park. By then, the front was on top of us and we encountered so much wind, rain and even light snow. We didn't stay long. But I managed to get some fun pictures (can you see the profile of Cochise in the mountain photo?) before we scurried to our car to get warm.

We arrived back in Mesa around 5:00 that evening. We took a photo of us showing off our matching t-shirts that we bought at Ramsey Canyon. Note the green Arizona shirt that Juli is wearing in the Kartchner Caverns photo. All three of us own the same shirt and I didn't think to bring mine or we could have all been matching! So we decided to buy new t-shirts that matched.

 Juli and I then loaded up her car and left for Payson after we ate dinner at a place in downtown Mesa called Against The Grain - a completely gluten-free restaurant. The menu was daunting but I finally decided upon mozzarella sticks and chicken strips and a donut. Juli shared a bit of her orange chicken. Everything was delicious!

The weather we dealt with all day caused us a bit of concern on our drive up to Payson as they had snow off and on all day. Happily, we just encountered rain, thick fog and some snow but nothing was sticking to the roads (and it wasn't icy).  We breathed a sigh of relief when we pulled into Juli's driveway! And, evidently, ADOT closed the southbound part of the Beeline highway that night due to snow so I guess we made it to Payson in the nick of time!

This is what we woke up to Saturday morning...

That morning, we got to see the newly released movie Rule Breakers which is a true story about an Afghanistan girl robotic team and the obstacles they faced, being girls in a Taliban ruled country. I really enjoyed it. And, the viewing was sponsored by the Payson Classic Car Club. The club has a monthly movie activity of going to a movie at the local theater. A member of Juli's ward belongs to this club and she invites members of the ward to join. For $8, we got a drink, popcorn AND saw the movie. What a deal!!!

After the show, we did some shopping. I found some pretty rock souvenirs for my students. Temperatures warmed up and snow was melting fast.  We worked on a 500 piece puzzle in the afternoon. And we watched Instrument of War that evening. It was a true story about a WWII POW camp in Germany and a prisoner who built a violin while he was there. Really good.

Today was church in the morning, we took a nice walk this afternoon (again, temperatures are in the 60's) and I will get to see Jesse and Kat for dinner. I fly back to St. Louis tomorrow evening. 

I will close with a photo of our puzzle and of a beautiful vista from Massai Point in Chiracahua.

 

So NICE!

We had NICE, spring-like temperatures all this past week in contrast to the snow and bitter cold of the week before. But, yesterday it was COLD again! I guess it must be spring in Missouri....

Take a look at my adorable, NICE little cactus blossoms. This was a gift from our neighbor, Mona.

Tuesday evening, after giving Larkin and Quinn piano lessons, I stopped in at the Target that was nearby hoping to find some snow boots. The ones I have were given to me several years ago and they are fine for shoveling snow but terrible for walking around because they are just a teensy bit too big. Not surprisingly, Target had nothing this late in the season. I had already looked unsuccessfully at two Walmarts. My next stop was to go to Shoe Carnival on Wednesday after grocery shopping and, happily, I found a very NICE pair that is a bit too dressy for shoveling snow but still casual enough to wear with jeans. Happy Jeanne. Also on that Tuesday night, I went to JoAnn Fabrics hoping to find white thread (not Coats and Clark but Gutermann. According to the Huskvarna sewing machine rep, Coats and Clark is not as good a quality thread as it used to be). Sadly, just that day, JoAnn Fabrics announced that they are closing all their stores and the store I went to had already started marking down their inventory, including thread. So, there was not a spool of white thread to be found. Sad Jeanne. My sewing machine will just have to make do with Coats and Clark for the time being until I can find another source for Gutermann brand. 

On Thursday, Steve and set out on a quest for replacement dining room chairs (used, hopefully). First we stopped off at aluminum recycling where I redeemed a NICE record of $17.52 worth of cans!!! We continued down the road to a church sponsored thrift store that is only open on Thursdays and Saturdays. They were having their twenty-five cent sale. And, because they wanted to clear out their current inventory, they had an even better sale of "anything you can fit into a paper grocery sack for just one dollar" sale. And Steve and I scored big time! Steve found six pants hangers, five clipboards (for him to use in his English class since his room is too small for a table), and three ties. I found four white cereal bowls, two pieces of kid-themed fabric curtains that I can make into humanitarian blankets, and a curling iron. What a NICE deal!!! But, no furniture. The next stop was to a St. Vincent de Paul thrift store and - TA DA!!! - there were six very NICE matching dining room chairs for $9 a piece. They are very solid and I think the two colored wood is kind of pretty. Here they are:

Finally, the last NICE thing that happened this week was getting to go on a double date with Emily and Joe last night. First, we had a super NICE meal at Little Fox. I love how Beckie takes care of my gluten issues when we eat there. After stuffing ourselves, we went to the St. Louis Symphony's performance of Beethoven's 9th Symphony. It was such a fantastic performance!!!

To close out this blog, I recommend a very NICE movie on Disney+ called The Young Woman and the Sea. It is based upon the true story of Trudy Ederle, the first woman to swim the English Channel back in the 1920's. 

 

SO COLD

The word of the week was COLD.  Bitter cold for most of the the time. Temperatures were in the single digits with negative digit wind chill Monday through Friday. Brrrr. Thanks, jet stream, for bringing all of that cold down from Canada. And, then, just like that, the jet stream changed this weekend and we are expected to have 60 degrees tomorrow!

Last Sunday afternoon, I left right after to church to drive up to the UMSL Touhill Performing Arts Center to join Emily, Joe and Noah for a St. Louis Youth Symphony concert. These kids are the cream of the crop in the greater St. Louis area and they sounded fantastic. This particular concert was a side-by-side performance with members of the actual St. Louis Symphony and two of the three pieces  were conducted by Stephan Deneuve, the SLSO conductor. They did Sorcerer's Apprentice, two Harry Potter pieces, and Pictures at an Exhibition. ALL very difficult pieces of music. Noah has a good friend who plays oboe in the ensemble. 

Monday morning it was too cold to walk outside so we walked at the Rec Center. Beckie came over for lunch and I helped her pot a fiddle leaf fig. Last fall, my fiddle leaf had grown to the ceiling so I trimmed it way back and actually cut the cutting in half and put both pieces in water with the hope that they would develop roots - and they did! I gave one to Beckie and the other to a cello student who is rather obsessed with plants - she has them all around her bedroom. That evening, this cello student's mother turned 50 and the family had a big birthday celebration at the church. Steve and I attended where they served sandwiches and chips and soup and assorted cheesecake cups for dessert. The soup was gluten-free, she had a gluten-free sandwich set up and some of the cheesecakes were gluten-free. I pigged out! Here is a photo of Steve at the event.

  

Tuesday morning, we awoke to about two inches of powdery snow so Steve and I shoveled it for our exercise. We knew more was predicted but we also figured that the additional snow would be much easier to remove if we cleared the first "wave". The photo below shows Steve up by the car. We had already shoveled the driveway down to the street. It was pretty quick work to shovel the long backyard driveway because it was so light and powdery.

Here is what it looked like Wednesday morning after more snow fell overnight. We got about three more inches and, again, we made shoveling our morning exercise.

And, as we had hoped, the second shoveling went a whole lot easier since we only had to remove three inches rather than five. Happily, because the snow was so powdery and light, the main roads were all quite drive-able. Home school orchestra was cancelled Tuesday afternoon which gave Steve and me an open afternoon to drive down to Savers. I found three very nice pairs of jeans and three warm sweaters and Steve found two warm sweaters. 

Civic Orchestra rehearsal was cancelled Tuesday night due to the second wave of snow falling. I was very happy to not have to drive the twenty-one miles in snow and crazy drivers but I was not happy to miss rehearsal with a concert in five days. 

Thursday and Friday mornings were sunny and bright but still bitterly cold so Fred, Steve and I walked at the Rec Center both days. Steve and I braved the cold to buy groceries and visit the dentist on Wednesday, to attend English class on Thursday night, to go to the temple Friday morning and to go to orchestra dress rehearsal Friday night. 

We also went BOWLING Friday afternoon! I can count on one finger how many times I have bowled and it was fifty years ago! But, there was a Kindness Begins With Me volunteer appreciation party at the nearby bowling lanes and Steve and I thought "why not?" Because I was going to be playing my cello later that evening, I was worried about hurting my right arm so I bowled left handed and, surprisingly, I got a "spare". But, I still came in last out of our six-member team. Here is the almost-final score and then the final score and a photo of the "team" (minus Leslie).

Elise came for the weekend, arriving Friday evening after Steve and I had left for dress rehearsal. Remember that Steve prefers to attend dress rehearsals because he can take off his shoes (battling neuropathy and restless leg) and not worry about bothering anyone around him. Saturday morning, she and Steve went to the temple while I stayed home to fix a lemon pie and to teach two students. After lunch and a nap, we three drove to the History Museum because Elise wanted to see the World's Fair exhibit, like we had seen earlier in the month. And, that evening, Elise came to hear my concert. We played in the beautifully restored 100-plus year old Sun Theater, which was a new venue for the orchestra. Maybe because it was a bit smaller than we were accustomed to, maybe because we had to cancel the Tuesday night rehearsal, maybe because the music had tricky multi-meter rhythms which required focus on the baton and counting like crazy, but we were just not as solid and as cohesive a group for much of our performance. I know I played much better in the dress rehearsal than in the performance. But, Elise said she couldn't detect any blaring mistakes so I guess we were a success. It was very fun to play, regardless of the challenges. 

And that brings me to today, Sunday. Steve gave a talk in Sacrament Meeting, I taught the Primary lesson, we fed the missionaries and Elise a yummy dinner and then we bid Elise a farewell. I'm ready for warmer temperatures this coming week.

 

Valentine's Day week

I will start with some cute photos of grandkids.  The first is of Ivan sitting in the "giving a talk" seat for Primary and the second is of Alice and Ivan on that same Sunday showing the congregation how to be reverent before church services begin. 

More photos of Alice and Ivan at the movie theater where they watched Dog Man, which is Alice's favorite book read these days.  This was Ivan's first experience at a movie theater and he behaved perfectly - he was riveted to the movie.

Finally, Tuesday night photos of Larkin where Fiona is trying to coopt the bed.

This is a picture of my Primary class from last Sunday. I usually teach five chldren but one was sick and the other was out of town. Here is Anaya, Aislinn and Quentin with their sheep creations. "Fear not, little flock" was the lesson theme. I also brought a bunch of my stuffed lambs and a couple stuffed wolves and a stuffed lion and they loved playing with them.

My two main objectives this past week was to make and deliver Valentine goodies and to get the orchestra concert program finished and to the printers. For the goodies, I made gluten-free cake pops for the first time. They turned out to be quite delicious. I also tried a new truffle recipe - chocolate caramel - and they were also yummy. Steve baked brownies to give to his ministering families and I took some of the cooked brownies and rolled them into brownie truffle balls....gluten-full so I didn't try them but Steve says they are tasty. As for the program, I kept hounding the conductor for the program notes on the composers and I finally got them on Wednesday and everything went to the printers on Thursday. Whew! 

I have a new assignment in Kindness Begins With Me Thursday night classes - I started teaching a super basic English class on Thursday to women who never went to school and are illiterate even in their own language. I brought crayons and colored pencils and they spent the hour coloring and tracing the letters A, B and C.  I sang the ABC song with them and we will continue to sing that each week as we work our way through the alphabet. I had a great time and I actually feel the most useful and in my true element for the first time with this program. 

Valentine's Day was busy! Steve and I scheduled our annual United Healthcare House Calls visit for that morning about a month back thinking it would be a "light" morning. Then, Fred needed Steve to take him to the post office and I got an invitation to lunch to celebrate the birthday of a friend and, suddenly, it became tricky to do those things before and after this nurse visit. Happily, it all worked out! We went to the temple in the afternoon and we had a delicious Valentine dinner of grilled pork steaks, baked beans, rice, asparagus, heart shaped strawberry jello and a Valentine cake that had all the ingredients of a trifle - raspberries, vanilla custard, whipped cream, cake. We watched an episode of All Creatures Great and Small afterwards. 

Saturday was also busy! We worked in the temple baptistry in the morning. I had a cello lesson in the afternoon (my violin student cancelled). Steve made some goodie deliveries while I taught. Then we visited a friend who had just recently come home from being many months in a rehabilitation facility after a devastating stroke in August, and we ended the day with a vegetarian chili dinner at our house with our neighbors, Ed and Mona and watching The Hundred-Step Journey.  Whew, what a day! 

I will end with a cute photo of Sally perched on the couch in the TV room - one of her favorite places.

 

Two Museums in Two Days!

You know, living in Saint Louis has its problems: The drivers are deplorable, we can sometimes hear distant gunshots when we go outside our house, we are not close to Menards, JoAnn, Hobby Lobby, Culvers, Target or a even decent Walmart. BUT, Saint Louis DOES have some great perks - specifically an exceptional zoo, science center, art museum and history museum - all completely free. How many cities can make that claim?  What is nice about these places being free is that you don't feel like you have to stay for hours and hours in order to get your money's worth.  And so, an hour and a half visit to the art museum on a Friday morning with your daughter and grandchildren is just perfect and not exhausting.  Then, because we have wanted to see a couple of specific exhibits, Steve and I went to the history museum the next afternoon, again for just about an hour and a half. 

At the art museum, we visited Egyptian and Greek displays and a special exhibit of art from the Federal Art Project that was created during the Great Depression to put artist to work. I also love visiting the Impressionist displays and saw some Monet, Van Gogh, Renoir and others. We didn't have Noah with us because he was in Chicago at Model UN. Here's Lucy, Quinn and Larkin

 

At the history museum, we wanted to see the exhibit on the Eads Bridge that was built in the 1800's to span the Mississippi. It was a remarkable feat of engineering for its time. We also visited the new exhibit on the St. Louis World's Fair of 1904. The old exhibit was amazing and this one is even better! 

The rest of the past week was pretty much the usual stuff - Women's Afghanistan gathering Monday morning, orchestra on Tuesday evening, grocery shopping on Thursday (can you believe the price of eggs?!?!?), English classes for the Afghanistans Thursday evening, lessons throughout the week. I attended Happy Hookers on Wednesday morning and, because snow prevented our meeting last month, there was a lot of finished items to show and tell. It seemed to take forever! 

Steve and I went over to Beckie's on Monday night for pizza and watching Twisters on her Max account. It was a good watch but it didn't trigger any tornado dreams like I used to regularly have. Steve's February movie was To Kill A Mockingbird and we watched that Friday evening. And, tonight, after I complete this blog, I am going to finish watching Crazy Rich Asians that I started on the flight home from Florida last week. I have seen it before but I can't remember how it ends. 

It's been 50 years, folks!

 Fifty years of marriage!  That is quite a milestone and we hit it this past Friday, January 31st. And, to celebrate, we wanted to go someplace warm. We had already been to Hawaii -  twice.  We don't have valid passports so going outside the U.S. was a hassle.  And, we got a great deal through our Hilton Honors program in Daytona Beach so we flew to Florida and had a very lovely time.

We flew there Wednesday and came home Saturday....all on Southwest where all our flights were way below passenger capacity so Steve and I got a row of seats all to ourselves. And, because I know how to do the "check in" at exactly 24 hours prior to departure, we got A seating on all flights.  

We enjoyed delicious food - BBQ at a local place called Hog Heaven, 

breakfast at IHOP (gluten-free pancakes - mmmmm), dinner at an elegant restaurant called Chart House with a view of the marina from our table (prime rib - delicious). And, of course a meal at Culver's on the way from Jacksonville to Daytona Beach.

Our hotel was right on the beach and temperatures were pleasant enough for walking barefoot in the surf but not actually swimming. I couldn't stop collecting shells!  

We really didn't do a whole lot - just a LOT of relaxing and doing nothing (which was SO nice for this woman who always fills her days with so many activities)

On the way back up to Jacksonville, we had thought we would spend a little bit of time exploring St. Augustine but it was crazy busy and parking was either impossible or too expensive for just two hours so we pretty much just drove around looking at the sights from the car. 

Below - too bad the sign was having work done when we wanted to take a photo!  Blame it on the off-season.

On our way to have BBQ on Thursday evening...

my shell collection

the view from our hotel room on the 6th floor....

The photos below were taken the evening we ate at Chart House - which of the two photos of us do you like best????

Here we are shopping for breakfast supplies at a quintessential Southern grocery store chain.

One last time on the beach

Beckie took us to the airport and she watched Sally while we were gone. Emily picked us up when we returned Saturday evening. 

Today, Steve and I drove to Ballwin before our church meetings to take part in Quinn's ordination to the Aaronic Priesthood.                                                                                                                                       

And now, back to reality!