A Taste of Home

It's funny how all roads end up in Arizona.

Last week we were able to spend time with our friends Colleen and Dennis from Ritzville who were selling their lovely jewelry in Casa Grande. Yesterday I got a text message from Madeline wondering if we could get together for dinner tonight as they were here in Phoenix. Madeline grew up on a farm a few miles down the road from Forry. She recently retired from her many years as a teacher in Moses Lake. Her husband Bernie had been attending irrigation meetings near the airport while Madeline had been enjoying some shopping.

Anyhow, Bernie finished up with his meetings and we arranged to meet them at Rancho del Tia Rosa, our favorite Mexican restaurant. They were on their way back to their rental at Lake Havasu where they are spending the winter.

We not only had a wonderful early dinner, but also got caught up on the news about each other's families and mutual friends.

Like me, Madeline is tired of cold weather and snow. We commiserated with each other over arthritic joints and how much better we feel in the sunshine. (Though today was not a good example as we woke up to rain showers.) It will be nice to see if more of our friends and relatives end up wintering in this part of the world...

I had a nice phone visit today with Sister Sherry. In spite of having a visitor who came down with the flu, Sherry luckily seems to have avoided it. I would NOT wish that nasty stuff on anyone!

An Excursion to Casa Grande

Our friends from Ritzville, Dennis and Colleen, are spending the winter in Tucson selling their jewelry at local fairs and shows. They were scheduled to be at the Street Faire in Casa Grande this weekend. Since it is only an hour or so away, we decided to go visit this afternoon.

We found them at their booth on the corner of 4th and Florence Streets --

Dennis and Colleen have a great variety of jewelry and wind chimes made from silver plate --

Serving pieces make great bases for wind chimes --

The different tops, the length of the silver wire holding them, and the number of spoons make for many different sounds --

In a way, it's a real shame that no one wants to deal with polishing silver or washing it by hand. All of these pieces were destined for scrap --

The Street Faire in Casa Grande is a big two-day event. There were over eighty booths lining the downtown streets --

One of shops we went into had turquoise stones from many of the mines in the southwest. I was able to buy several stones that I will be able to use in the silversmith shop here at Valle del Oro.

This is the name of Dennis and Colleen's business -- The Recycled Spoon.

And this is my new treasure. My watch face was pretty badly cracked, so it is a delight to have this new pretty!

After the Street Faire closed for the day at five pm, we went with Dennis and Colleen to Mi Amigo Ricardo, a Mexican restaurant for a good dinner and an even better chat.

It Was a Lovely Day

What a lovely day we've had today! It's finally gotten warm again -- we actually had the windows and door open and the fans running. It actually only got to 75 degrees, but it sure was a lot better than the 50 degrees we've been having lately.

We did go out for a bike ride this afternoon. We checked the mailbox and then stopped by Juni and Tom's to get a puppy fix.

There is still a bit of evidence of freeze damage around the park. It looks like the hardest hit were these beavertail cacti --

It makes you wonder how old those plants actually were. This one looks like it may have been growing for a long while --

I do hope this warm weather continues. We're planning a trip to the Casa Grande Street Fair tomorrow afternoon and it would be nice if it were shirt sleeves weather.