Pheonix Trip

Its been difficult to get back to blogging since my trip. So I'll try to catch you all up on what I've been up too.
First I am so glad I was able to go to Phoenix and be there for my brother Scott.

It was a difficult for us all but of course especially so for him. He has started the slow process of healing and my family has pulled together to support him. In spite of the sadness it was wonderful to spend time together. I am reminded how wonderful family is, what a gift they are. When we walk through really hard times there are people who we belong to who truly care and are ready to throw their arms around us and see us through.

Phoenix is just beautiful. A little more crowded than I like but still a really nice to visit.
I got some awesome pictures and it will take me months to share them all.
Here is just a sampling.
This palm is in my parents backyard and I just love it. Their pool is pretty nice too.

I caught this sunset in their backyard too.


These mountains are on the way to my youngest brother Jason's home in Maricopa. The landscape is so different from the North East. So sparse but the beauty is unbelievable. This same day we saw a herd of wild ponies out there. Very cool.
We spent a lovely day at the home of my future sister-in-law Jean who is to marry my brother Kurt. She lives out in the desert and her home and yard are gorgeous.
More about Jean another day. (Hi Jean!) (I really like her!)

This moon bid us goodnight.
More tomorrow.

Henrietta Turkey

Well it seems this wild turkey has decided to move in. I have seen her everyday for about 2 weeks now. I decided if she is going to hang around she has to have a name and Henrietta just seems to fit.Our Henrietta sashays about the yard and visits all the neighbors. She snacks on the leavings beneath the bird feeders.

I have noticed she has a special affinity for Scott's nature path.
She grows bolder every day so I am getting some really good pictures of her. The dogs are half crazed when she makes her daily visit but even they are getting used to her. If she sticks around til November we will be all set. I have to go throw some seed on the front lawn.

Our little Niagara Falls

Just around the corner from our house there is this beautiful waterfall. I love to go there and just watch the water.
We stopped by after our hike on Sunday. Look what a gorgeous day we had.

Now listen!

The ice world

Whew Christmas Open House is over. Everyone had an awesome time.
I just have to get a few stocking stuffers for Scott and I will be set for Christmas morning. Well except for all the baking I will be doing since I could not do that last weekend with my electric stove (I hate that stove!)during our ice storm and power outage.

I told you I had more pictures of the ice storm of last week so I wanted to get those up here. By the by, there are still scads of people without power, especially in the little town of Lunenburg just a few miles down the road from us. The Governor has launched an investigation into the delay and I saw about 25 electric company trucks while on my way to church today. The worst part is that it is snowing here today. In fact it has been snowing since Friday. It started about 2:00PM Friday and I really think it has not stopped since. From flurries to blizzard like conditions it has just been snowing.

First here is what we saw when we got up Friday 12/12.
This is the top of a birch tree used to be totally just outside our fence. We're lucky it fell in the fence and not on it.

You can just see the top of the broken tree in this pic. Pretty tall huh?
and here is a close-up of that, the rest encased in ice.

Scott and I usually go and cut down our Christmas tree each year. We go to a tree farm in Lunenburg but they had to close down this year due to ice damage. We set out last Saturday and were astounded by the absolute devastation we saw in that little town. I keep saying it looked like a tornado went through and left a wave of ice behind. This was a typical look down a side road. The glare from ice everywhere made it difficult to take pictures.
This was also a far too common site for the whole week.

This video shows what it was like when the sun came out and melted everything that day.

I have more pics I will share later on. But for now I'd like to focus on Christmas. Uh oh, the lights just flickered. I hope we stay in the current century. I am not much of a pioneer woman.

Thank our Troops

Regardless of how you feel about the war in Iraq I think we can all agree the soldiers are making a huge sacrifice of their time.

I was trolling my favourite blogs this evening and came across LetsSayThanks.com at Chronicles of a Country girl. (Her photos are gorgeous!)
This is especially important to me because my niece Lauren is serving in Iraq right now. Go visit her blog Laurne and say hi. LetsSayThanks.com is a program Xerox created to send Thank You cards created by children to our troops. You just click on the card of your choice choose a message and your card will be sent to a soldier.
This is a great season to let them know we are thinking of them and thanking them for their service.
Go send a card!