Christmas 2009

We had Alexis and Luca visiting for a few days.
We took them to the Casino for lunch at Johnny Rocket,
 bowling and some fun time at Kid's Quest.
 Origninal plans were for some snow fun at Flagstaff,
but the weather was too snowy with slick roads on I-17 and I-40.

On Christmas Eve we took them back home for a nice dinnerof cold cuts and more. The kids were allowed to open a couple presents.

On Christmas Day they opened the rest of them. The we had a delicious dinner consisting of baked ham with all the trimmings.

Verde Valley Voices Concert

(A 30 sec excerpt)

The Verde Valley Voices together with the Cottonwood Community Band presented some Holiday favorites at the new auditorium of the Verde Baptist Church.

Cottonwood Community Band

Enjoyed the sounds of the band, playing in the newly renovated Mingus High School auditorium.

Fall colors
in Cottonwood,
taken this morning.

Thanksgiving

We had the our Chandler family at our house for Thanksgiving dinner. The turkey came out great, they all enjoyed it. Too bad they all had to go back home the next day because of other family visits.

The Verde Valley Sentimental Journey Orchestra played again at the Clarkdale, AZ Clark Memorial Clubhouse. Elfriede and I enjoyed dancing to the tunes of Glenn Miller and other favorites.

Bowling again!

Elfriede bowled again after a long interruption, two games, over 100!

Alexis Birthday

We spent the weekend with Glen's family. Teejay, Glen's brother also drove down from Sacramento.

Hoover Dam

On the way back from Las Vegas, we stopped at the Hoover Dam, mainly to see the progress of the Highway 93 bridge over the Colorado River.

Recent Trips

Some friends of ours from Pyrbaum, Germany toured the Southwest, including some of the National Parks. They concluded their visit in Las Vegas. We joined them for a couple days. We haven't been to Las Vegas for about 7 years, not too many changes noted. Our visitors were from Bavaria, but they still wanted to experience the Hofbräuhaus in Las Vegas.


Irregardless that the city is in the middle of the desert, the water fountain show is still being presented, a popular tourist attraction (see the youtube in the side bar)

Weekend with Luca

We had some "quality" time with Luca (3yr 9mos. Saturday, he really enjoyed the Verde River Days at the Dead Horse State Park.




We listened to the music preformed by the Verde Valley Community Band, Luca especially liked a group called Kid Fiddlers. Other Activities included a Kiddie Slide, sand castle building. The conclusion of the day was the Civil War reenactment. Luca had to hold his ears, since he had to stand close to demo firing of cannons.

It was a hot day, 98 in the shade!
The picture on the right partially shows Elfriede applauding the Civil War reenactment. I brought my video camera and not the digital one. So, the photos are courtesy of the Dead Horse State Park. See more pictures on this LINK

Apple Fest and more....

Today we spent a nice day, first at the Sliderock State Park near Sedona (Applefest) and later at the Sedona Community Fair held at the airport. There were no apples, they had a 17 degree frost in the spring damaging the blossoms. The park originally was started as the Pendley homestead around 1910. (Park web site)

We had our lunch on a bench with a view of the Oak Creek, see picture.

We were a little late for the fair at the airport, just had time for coffee and dessert, and browsing around some of the exhibits

A day at Tlaquepaque, Sedona

We spent a nice day at the shopping center in center, listening to Flamenco and Mariachi music. The weather was nice with clouds moving in in the afternoon. Two days before the area experienced a flash flood that swept away son e cars in the parking lot.
Take a video tour of Tlaquepaque HERE

Rain and fog

It finally rained Saturday and this morning we woke up with fog outside, an unusual sight in the northern Arizona desert.

Back to the Pool

Elfriede enjoyed swimming again, first time since knee surgery.

Heart Beats

Elfriede had a doctor's appointment today (Dr. Samuel Butman, Cardiologist). She came out happy, no problems found.
With this positive diagnosis we ventured out to our Dead Horse State Park. Elfriede walked around the middle lagoon.
Our blue sage bush in bloom


Pictures of the laggon at Deadhorse Statepark

Movie night

Today we drove to Sedona, did a little Indian jewelery shopping in the Oak Creek Canyon, the went to see Julie & Julia .
The background scenery was nice, especially of Paris, brought back some memories. The movie was entertaining, at times maybe somewhat slow moving.

From studio360.org:

This is the way news should be presented... a lot more fun!
Auto-Tune the News

Movie Time

Went with Glen, Alexis & Luca to see a movie at the San Tan Village Harkins theater. G-Force in 3D! It 's about a bunch of well trained rodents. Had to wear glasses. The kids liked it, that's important. For us senior spectators the thing about rats, mole, and guinee pigs was a little overdone. The ending noisy with fire, explosions, etc

Fun with Alexis and Luca

We picked up Alexis at school, got Luca from his home and checked into the Legacy Best Western in Gilbert. After a swim in the nice pool, we had a snack at the Panda Express nearby. Glen also stopped by. He took Alexis back home, since she had school the next day. The pictures were taken during their recent vacation trip to New Mexico to visit Rachel's parents.

Recovering...

Back home in Cottonwood. Outside temperature around 100 degrees.

Flagstaff Med. Center

Elfriede was kept in the Cardio wing (3rd floor-east, room 3067) overnight for monitoring. Around noon an echocardiogram was done.

Arrived at the Flagstaff Hospital Ambulatory Surgical Center around noon. The arthroscopic knee surgery to repair the meniscus tear of the right knee at 1:15 pm. When Elfriede came out from the anesthesia, her vital signs showed irregular heart beat (Arrhthmia), fluctuating blood pressure. Eventually the signs stabilized, but the attending physician recommended that we keep her overnight for monitoring

The arthroscopic meniscus repair was successful. Dr. Randall said probably about 10 % neede d to be removed.

Meniscus repair/removal

Movie date

Last night we went to the movies in Sedona and watched "The Proposal". It was entertaining, no car chases, explosions, mass killings, or meteors crashing.

Called Flagstaff: Knee Surgery scheduled for July 31

Flagstaff

Trip to Flagstaff to meet with Dr. Randall. She will call and make an appointment for arthroscopic surgery on Elfriede's right knee.

July 2009 odds and ends

Just took a minute to look at this blog. I was busy archiving all my VHS video tapes onto DVD's, using a Philips DVDR with a 160 GB disk (DVDR3576H).
More info found on this forum

see also my Verde Valley website

Sentimental Journey

A pleasant evening in the Clarkdale town park, listeneing to the band playing mostly Glen Miller sounds

Arizona

Welcome to our Arizona pages