July 2007

July has been a great month! We spent the 4th in Sunriver - The weather has been great. Mike has been riding his bike every day training for a 7 day - 500 mile ride in August. He rides 30 - 35 miles at a quick pace with many hills for conditioning. I also ride every day with a couple of gals. We ride slow and enjoy ourselves.

We spent a fabulous week on a cruise to Mexico with Marc, Maria, Brandon and Karen. What fun! The ship was great - the ports (Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan and Cabo San Lucas) were all great - the food was INCREDIBLE and the drinks were flowing! The best part was spending an entire week with our wonderful sons and their fantastic wives. I only hope they had as much fun as we did!

Brandon, Karen, Ben, Anna and their friends Jodi, Trevor, Ollie and Sam came to Sunriver for a campout. We went swimming, off-roading, rafting, golfing, shopping, biking and had a general great time.

The Sisters Quilt Show was fantastic (as usual) I really enjoyed seeing the creations and getting inspired to do some sewing.

June 2007

Can you believe it? Little Anna has turned two! Her second birthday party on June 10th was great fun. June 11th we headed to Sunriver. It’s great to be here again. The air is so clean, it smells like pine trees, we love our time here. The winter wasn’t too kind to our deck. Mike spent several days stripping and refinishing it - It’s beautiful now! We seem to have so many deer this year - There is a doe and her two very little fawns that have been by several times and a couple of bucks too. We see deer most every day

Mike’s sister Pat and her husband Ron have just sold their house, retired from their jobs, purchased a new truck & 5th wheel and have hit the road. It’s a great lifestyle! They came to spend a week with us in Sunriver. We really enjoyed having them here. While here, they found some property and have purchased it for their new “summer home” We had a BBQ with all of our Sunriver friends to introduce them and celebrate their new purchase.

May 2007

Spent a wonderful 5 days in Lake Havasu City with Joan and Norm (Sunriver friends) Saw cigarette boat racing, hiked to a gorgeous slot canyon, afternoon visit with Bob & Maryanne (Sunriver friends), great tours of the town and the London Bridge, golf at the Refuge, boat ride across the lake and a visit to Oatman, AZ (a unique small town on Route 66 where the wild burros come down from the mountains each day and roam around the town)

Next stop Monument Valley, UT where we took a tour of the valley (gorgeous!) Monument Valley is on the Navajo Indian Reservation and there is an abundance of Navajo history in this beautiful place. Spent a day touring Canyon DeChelly - another breathtaking canyon filled with ancient ruins.

Spent 9 days in Moab, UT where we met up with the FMCA 4-Wheelers group. Went out on several organized “Jeepin trails into the unbelieveable beauty that is in the backcountry. We got the chance to see just what our Rubicon is capable of. We had some great times with some great friends.

Next on to Vancouver where we got to spend 3 days with our two youngest grandkids while Mom and Dad were in Hawaii. We are really loving this “On the Road” lifestyle so after they returned, we cleaned out our storage unit and moved our “must keeps” into Brandon & Karen’s attic. We had a huge garage sale (3 families total) and sold quite a bit of “stuff”

We are currently at Marc & Maria’s…..Maria is having her tonsils removed and we are here to help out till she gets back on her feet.

April 2007

April has been a quiet and somewhat windy month. The days are in the 80's but we have had a fair amount of evening wind making everything dusty. The RV resort is slowly emptying out, folks are heading home. We have attended numerous "Going Away" parties. We have spent several months in close proximity to so many wonderful people and now we must say goodbye until next winter. Although it's difficult to say goodbye, we are getting itchy to get on the road. There is so much amazing country out there and we want to see it all!

Both of us have been riding our bikes (I ride with the ladies and Mike goes out with men) The weather here is perfect for bike riding. We have spent our Wednesday's "Jeepin" with the off roading group, have seen some old mines and some beautiful cactus blooms. I have finished a quilt and have just finished a quilt class - hope to finish that project this week. Mike went to a remote control Jet exhibition which he said was really neat and is now getting in his last bit of desert golf before we leave. We drove up into the mountains and met friends for lunch in Idyllwild. Idyllwild is a small mountain resort community in the mountains overlooking Palm Springs. It's at about 6000 feet and the weather was cool, brisk and sunny with snow on the ground. It was beautiful!

March 2007

March 2007
Oh, Oh, this “off roading” thing is turning very serious. The Tahoe has been replaced with a 2007 4-door Jeep Wrangler Rubicon. Mike couldn’t be any more proud about the new addition to our family. Note the picture above, now we can go into places where the Tahoe just wasn’t equipped to handle!
We spent a day with friends at the Da Vinci exhibit in Palm Springs. It was an incredible exhibit and we came out with a new appreciation for a very intelligent man who was so far ahead of his times.

February 2007

February 2007
We started off the month with a “60th Birthday Party” on our lot. We had 66 people here and had a wonderful time. Mike is starting a new decade but it certainly isn’t slowing him down!
During the middle of the month, we flew up to Portland to celebrate Camryn and Colby’s birthday’s. Camryn is now 7 and Colby is 4. They are growing up so fast. While in Portland, we stayed at Marc and Maria’s new home in Sherwood, took in a “Hoop-a-thon” (fund raiser for Camryn’s school) attended the super joint birthday party, had a fun night with Brandon, Karen, Ben and Anna, went out to dinner at Benihana’s (Camryn & Colby’s favorite restaurant) and spent an afternoon at a local swimming pool. Great time!

January 2007

January 2007
Looking forward to a great new year full of adventure and travels. We are at Ourdoor Resorts in Indio (We call this home as we spend about 6 months a year here) Weather is wonderful, while the rest of the country is shoveling snow, we are enjoying clear blue skies and about 70-75 degrees) Mike has found a new hobby - He is now interested in “Off roading” By the picture above, you can notice that I’m still not too sure of this new adventure. We are taking the Tahoe out every Wednesday with a group from our resort. We head out into the desert and have seen some interesting canyons, vistas, old mines, beautiful cactus, a lot of rocks and a fair amount of dust.