AZDonna

Brian and Carrie took the kids up to the White Mountains to see snow this weekend. Nathan has never played in snow, and Lauren certainly does not remember it. Brian knows someone who owns a cabin near Showlow. They were offered the use of it for the weekend. These are pictures taken last week. Beautiful, huh?

I woke up this morning at 1:50 a.m. hearing “patta, pat, pat, patta, pat, patta, pat” in the back yard, and the sound of running water. I laid there for a few minutes, but couldn’t go back to sleep. I got out of bed and peeked out the window, and saw it was pouring rain. I figured out the sound was a plastic frozen dinner plate that Holly had carried outside and water was dripping off the porch roof onto it.

I went back to bed, and tried to go back to sleep. But I kept hearing that “patta, pat, pat” and it was really beginning to annoy me. I couldn’t ignore it, and I couldn’t go back to sleep. So I got out of bed and went outside in the cold and wet to get that plate. As soon as I opened the sliding door, I discovered the sprinklers were on. It was pouring down rain, and the sprinklers were running! Apparently the rain sensor was drowned or something. I grabbed that plastic plate, turned off the sprinklers, locked up, dried off my feet, and went back to bed.

I finally dropped back to sleep at about 4 a.m.

I’m not a football fan. But it was impossible to ignore it this past week when the Super Bowl came to town. To let you know just how much it has been in the local news, even Mom knew that the Patriots were one of the teams playing!

I watched the pre-game show to see what the national commentators were saying about the Valley of the Sun. I would say we scored a major touchdown with the media, celebrities, athletes and fans.

Jordin Sparks knocked it out of the stadium with her rendition of the national anthem. The commercials were okay … no better or worse than any other year. I’m not a Tom Petty fan … in fact I don’t even know who he is. So I pretty much ignored the halftime show.

Oh, yeah… the game. It was a football game. Since I don’t follow it, I didn’t have a favorite team. I thought it would have been kind of fun for the Patriots to accomplish their undefeated season, but I didn’t lose any sleep last night over their loss.

Super Bowl week coincided with the FBR Open pro golf tournament. That brought thousands more people to Phoenix, and along with Super Bowl fans who stopped off at the green, they had record attendance on Saturday AND Sunday.

What I liked best was all the money those visitors dropped into our local economy.

I have a sick mommy. Last Thursday, she started having symptoms of asthma/ bronchitis/ laryngitis. I went over on Sunday afternoon and got her some TV dinners so she wouldn’t have to pay the dining room to deliver a tray. On Tuesday, she complained she was coughing uncontrollably in the night, so I went out there after work and picked up some Delsym for her. She said it took a couple days, but the coughing is subsiding and she’s beginning to feel almost human again. She showered and dressed and went to the dining room today. Hope you’re on the mend, Mom!

Sure was a great game last night — Wildcats versus Cougars.

I flew up to Boise on Christmas night and spent five days with the Holsingers. I arrived at 11:30 pm, but one of my suitcases was the LAST one to come off the plane and it took forever to get out of the airport, so Robin and I didn’t get home until almost 1:00. In fact, I thought my suitcase was lost — major bummer because it had Christmas presents for the kids in it! — but after I walked over to customer service and waited in line for about 20 minutes, I decided to make one more check of the surrounding area. Lo! and behold! it was sitting right at the bottom of the chute. I’m convinced it came down after I walked away.

Robin and I went right to bed, and the next morning Megan and Steven got up and went downstairs to play and let us adults sleep in a bit. After all, they had lots of new stuff from the day before to entertain them. But along about 8:30, Steven started yelling up the stairs, “Get up, Grandma Doggies!” Believe me, I obeyed! I know a 3 year old waiting that long to open his second round of Christmas presents was really hard for him, and it wasn’t going to last much longer.

There was new snow on the ground every morning but one, and most days were crisp, but not miserably cold. I only got out three or four times the whole week, and the rest of the time I just stayed inside watching the snow fall and the kids play. We also rented a couple of movies.

But let me back up and comment about Christmas activities in Arizona before I left. All of our weekend church services were identical to our Christmas Eve service. Brian, Carrie and Nathan joined me on Sunday morning (Lauren was with her Mia and Poppa.) It was a beautiful candlelight service, and I’m always moved by the way the worship center looks with all the lights off and each person holding a lit candle. I went back to church on Christmas Eve to serve as an usher coordinator. It was packed — hopefully by people who don’t normally attend church services throughout the year. And hopefully they will come back to a non-holiday service and find there is something more than candles to light their lives.

I went home and prepared a maple twist to bake the next morning for breakfast, and hit the sack. I was all packed for my flight, and put the final items in my bags the next morning before heading out to Brian and Carrie’s for presents and fun watching the kids. Daryl’s family and Mom joined us for an afternoon dinner of Honeybaked Ham and all the trimmings, including chocolate pie.

I flew home New Year’s Eve. Glenda picked me up at the airport and we went to a movie. I did that last year with Richard and Dianna, and it was a great way to spend the evening, yet still be home before the drunks got on the road.

I took one more day off, and went back to work on the 3rd. I feel like I’m back in the routine now, but still despise that alarm going off each morning. That never changes.

Hope your holidays were wonderful, too. Be sure to check out the pictures, linked in my last post.