Happy Easter!

We have sure had a wonderful week with Stephanie here, enjoying the wonderful weather and getting caught up with what she has been up to. Her life is so busy and she sure has been making a positive impact on her class of seven behavioral challenged boys. We are so proud of her and all she has accomplished!

Today we took a nice hike around Fountain Hills Park, but for some reason the fountain wasn't working, very disappointing.

Tomorrow we will be off to church first thing, followed by a big brunch and an Easter egg hunt at our house.  It will be so nice to have our family together for the day.

I want to welcome Jessica and Harry as our latest followers.  I have been enjoying their blog since they went full-time 75 days ago. Sure is exciting reading about their adventures, we hope to do the same someday!

I hope you all have a Blessed Easter Sunday and be safe out there!

Nice Hike!

We have sure been enjoying having Stephanie here this week and the weather has cooperated and provided her with some much needed sunshine. 

Stephanie visited her students yesterday at her former school here in Scottsdale. She said it was like she had never left with some of the students and her former colleagues.  

Today, we decided it was time for a hike in this wonderful weather, so we headed out to the Superstition Mountains and the Dutchman Trail and we were not disappointed.  Here are some pictures from our day...

Starting Our Hike!

Many Options

Tracy and Me

Hugging Cactus

Stephanie and Me

Beautiful!

Tracy and Stephanie

Cactus Hearts?

Some Water

And Cows Too!

 

 

 

Great company, perfect weather, beautiful surroundings and exercise, doesn't get any better than this for sure!  Hope your day was great and thanks for joining us.

Stephanie!

Tracy and I are so excited that our oldest daughter Stephanie is arriving in Phoenix this afternoon to spend the Easter week with us.  She is looking forward to our wonderful weather to thaw out from the cold and rain of her Portland home. 

A picture from Christmas - Stephanie on the left, Sarah on the right!

We are planning on some hikes in the Superstition Mountains, visiting with family and of course Easter services at our church and a big Easter breakfast on Sunday.

Tracy and I were talking about Easter traditions that our family has always celebrated and they include dying eggs, ham, eggs, hash browns and hot crossed buns on Easter morning, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday services and of course an Easter egg hunt no mater how old our kids are.  What are some of your Easter traditions?

We would like to welcome Cheap Chick as our latest follower, you can visit her blog at Living Rich On The Cheap and thanks for joining us.

Well I hope to have some adventures to share with you between now and the end of the week, hope your adventures are going well, thanks for the visit and stay safe out there!

We Graduated!

Tracy and I have been taking Financial Peace University (FPU) at our church over the last nine weeks and we graduated last night! Sad to say that our class started with over 100 people nine weeks ago and class attendance has dropped each week, with about 60 people graduating last night. I know FPU is not for everyone, but it sure has positively changed our life. 

We have been following the FPU Baby Steps for about two years, but had never gone through the class, so it was fun to actually go through the official process.

The FPU Baby Steps are as follows:

I just wish Tracy and I would have found FPU 30 years ago, because by now, we would have certainly been at Baby Step 7.  As it is, we are working on Baby Step 6 and hope to have our house paid off in the next 5 years, if not sooner!

We are so happy to be able to share these steps with our kids and they really seem to be adopting them.  With the economy being tougher and tougher to make ends meet, it is our hope and prayer that these steps will help them to realize their future dreams.

I hope you are enjoying your dreams, have a great weekend and thanks for the visit!

Blogging

I really enjoy reading the many blogs that I follow each day, catching up on all of your adventures, especially when ours aren't especially exciting. 

This morning, I read with great interest, Tammy Fletcher's Blog, where she outlined their reasons for going full-time. Their reasons are much the same as ours, we are just unfortunately about 15 years, or so, away from doing it. :-(

I also read with sadness this week that Mike and Pat are suspending their blog for some unknown period of time.  I have sure enjoyed following their adventures between their homes in Arizona and South Dakota.  I am sure hoping that Mike will fire his blog back up in the near future, but I certainly understand that from time to time, that a break is good.  Mike and Pat, we wish you Godspeed and safe travels and look forward to reading your blog again soon!

I have had similar thoughts over the last few months regarding our blog.  We don't have too much exciting to report right now, other than just living our day to day life, but I am always looking for something that might be of interest. 

So for now, I will live vicariously through all of your adventures and will keep adding to our list of the many places that we will visit in the future, based on all of your recommendations.  

Thanks for the visit, enjoy the rest of your week and be safe out there!

Home Safe And Sound!

Well our world travelers made it back safe and sound and they had a wonderful time. We picked them up at the airport and the stories started non-stop all the way home. 

We were so happy that they made it back safe and sound and had such a wonderful time in Hong Kong.  Tracy and I are still on the mend from our colds, everyone says that it takes five weeks to recover and I think they are right. We both slept like logs last night, I think we were both so relieved that our travelers returned safely!

Here are some pictures from their great six days away.  Hope you are all having a great weekend and thanks for the visit!

Name that food!

Our Travelers

Sarah and Chuck

Sarah

Light Parade

Hong Kong Skyline

Fun In Hong Kong!

Thanks for all the well wishes for Sarah and Chuck as they undertook their Spring Break adventure to Hong Kong.

We Skyped with them last evening, that is sure a wonderful, free way to communicate, and they are doing great. Chuck said that they have been putting in 16 hour days, but have been seeing some beautiful sights, while visiting with Sarah's friend Jesse who is studying there.

It was sure great to see them on my iPad and to know that they are doing well. Sarah posted the picture below on her FaceBook page and said that she would give $10 to anyone who could guess what the food is on her chopsticks. She said it was part of their dinner and was delicious. I responded back and asked if it was $10 Hong Kong or U.S. and haven't heard back yet. I am sure that my guess of Almond Kitty was not correct anyway. :-(

We want to welcome our latest follower Tammy Fletcher to our little adventure.  Tammy has a great blog The Fletcher's Travels which you should definitely visit.  She posted a tour of their great new home on wheels and it sure looks comfortable.  Welcome aboard Tammy and we look forward to you and your husband's adventures as a new fulltimers. Thanks for the visit and we hope your week is going just great!

Headed To Hong Kong!

Our daughters have always had a wonderfully close relationship with my In-laws. They spent many summers traveling with their RV group across the country, they even attended the Calgary Stampede one year and had a great time.

I have always encouraged that relationship, because my grandparents on both sides had past when I was very young and I always felt a real void without them in my life.

Our youngest daughter Sarah and my FIL Chuck were talking about one of her best friends who is studying abroad in Hong Kong. Chuck was saying that he had been stationed in Hong Kong during the war and would love to go back there someday. Well, next thing we knew, Chuck sent us an itinerary for he and Sarah's trip to Hong Kong. Tracy and I were a little shocked, but very excited for the two of them to have the opportunity to go on this grand adventure over Spring Break.

So with all systems on go, we had to secure a Passport for Sarah and help her to get ready for her trip. It seemed so far off at Christmas, but today was the day, and we headed for Sky Harbor Airport. They are flying from Phoenix to San Francisco, then from SF to Hong Kong, which is a 15 hour flight...Ouch! They were both so excited to begin what I'm sure will be a great week and we can't wait to hear about all of the great fun they will have.

So Bon Voyage Chuck and Sarah, safe travels as you begin your adventure. And safe travels to all of you who are out and about and took the time to stop by and check-in, thanks for the visit!

Spring Has Sprung!

I have finally started feeling back to normal after almost two weeks with this crud, so much so, that I actually got out yesterday and took a walk around the block behind our offices, just to enjoy the sunshine and cool breeze.  

During my walk, I saw some beautiful wildflowers popping up everywhere, they were just beautiful and made my walk that much nicer for sure.

Pretty Flowers!

Nice!

Tracy is still suffering with this crud and has been running a temperature the last four days.  She has missed work and has been sleeping most of the day, which I hope is going to knock this thing out for her.  

We are supposed to have rain this weekend and we are not even scheduled to go camping, imagine that. :-) Not too much exciting to report unfortunately, hopefully we will have more fun to share in the days and weeks ahead.  Until then, keep well, enjoy yourselves and thanks for the visit!

The Gift That Keeps On Giving!

Well you are probably as sick of reading about this crud that I have as I am writing about it.  As you know from my last posting, Tracy and I went out shopping for her Birthday present on Saturday and we were actually successful finding a couple of things that she wanted.  I was amazed at how many people were hacking and sneezing, never covering their mouths or noses, while riffling through the clothes racks. No wonder so many people are sick!

The one thing that I did not want to give Tracy was my cold, and you guessed it, she woke up Sunday morning with a sore throat.  Sorry!

So Tracy is spending her Birthday today at home with the cats, staying warm and trying to get over this terrible thing.  She works at our church school and they had four teachers call in sick today and twenty four kids were out with it last Friday.

So it will be lots of soup and crackers for the next few days I'm afraid, although I am going to run out this afternoon and find a small chocolate cake to celebrate her big day when I get home from work!

That's all from here today, I hope you are having much more fun that we are and thanks for the visit!

Coming Back Slowly!

First of all, I want to thank each of you who left a message wishing me a quick recovery. It is always nice to get comments and I especially appreciated these.

This has been a tough week with the crud. Our big client project has required me to be in the office, even though I should have probably been home. I don't need to go into the details of the effects that this crud has, because I know that many of you have had it or are currently battling it.

Today I woke up feeling the best that I have in the last five days. Monday is Tracy's Birthday, so we are off to find just the right gift, wish us luck with that.

Loving this wonderful weather, 82 degrees today with beautiful sunshine. It is finally starting to feel like Arizona for a change.

I hired someone to cut back all of the plants that were wiped out in the freeze. I normally do that sort of thing myself, but with the crud, my schedule and a desire to avoid being cut to pieces by all of the sharp branches, I hired someone. I figured it would cost between $200 - $300 to clean up this mess, so when the guy said $100, I couldn't say sold fast enough. He and his helper spent about three hours yesterday, they did a great job and even hauled it all away. I think I got a deal and my back feels great besides!

That's it for now, time to shop until we drop (I hope not!). Hope your day is great and thanks for visiting.