CATCH-UP

It has been a long time since I updated the blog. I tried last week but AOL must have been having a ton of problems because I could not save or publish the blog. I guess that I will begin with this weekend. We celebrated our granddaughter's birthday. She is a lot of fun and gets so excited over gifts of clothes. Fun!!! Unfortunately I did not remember my camera so while I have some pictures on my phone that is where they most likely will stay. The really funny thing that happened was when John and I went to bed. We sleep in the basement in the guest room down there. Apparently before John came to bed Julie received a call from her brother that his wife might be in labor. Julie went over to sit their two children. When she came home at 3 AM she noticed that my windows and sunroof were wide open. She knew that it had rained. She woke up Brent and they ran around the house trying to find my keys. Once they found them then they started the car and closed the windows and sun roof. I woke up and then woke John up. I was trying to decide whether to go upstairs and see what was happening or if it was none of my business. I am sure no comedy skit was any funnier.

MARCH MADNESS

March Madness. This is the time of the year for the NCAA basketball tournaments. We have a family challenge. The only thing you can win is bragging rights. Right now all 6 of us have filled out brackets. After two rounds, I am in the lead by one point with the entire West bracket still intact. John is one point behind and his West bracket is also still intact. Julie and Brent are tied at one point behind John with the grandkids (code names "Bob" and "Redshoes") back farther. "Redshoes" has pretty much lost an entire bracket but after all she is only 3. "Bob" picks by teams he knows and then by mascots. He likes bulldogs so Butler goes out fairly far. Unfortunately Butler lost the first round as did The Ohio State University. My hopes now rest with Michigan State and Duke. While all of this is somewhat inconsequential it is fun and propels us through March. I am fairly busy this next week but as overtime is not approved I do have Thursday off and right now it is filled with fun things with friends. Spring has arrived and the temperatures are at least in the forties with some forays into the fifties.

GREASEWOOD FLATS

One more tidbit about Scottsdale and then back to reality. John has always wanted to go to Greasewood Flat and on the first day we were there we did stop for lunch before attacking the Apache Trail. Greasewood Flat is a bar basically. There is a steakhouse restaurant next door that was a stagecoach stop in the 1880's. The bar is very unique. It is all outdoors with outhouse restrooms. They serve hamburgers, hotdogs etc. The hamburgers were very good. One of the desk clerks at the condo complex we were staying at owns 1/4 of Greasewood Flat. Apparently his grandfather owned all of it and he and his brother were given a quarter share each. When asked why he did not work there, he replied that his grandfather did not want him hanging around there. It has been stated that the people that come there arrive on motorcycles, horseback and in mercedes. Quite a colorful place and fun to go to. Well that takes care of my last vacation. I have a lot of work coming in and hopefully will be able to add to this now and then.

INDIANS!!

Even though we were in Arizona, I did not mean the Native American Indians but rather the Cleveland Indians. We went to one of their spring training games. This was on Monday and they played the Chicago White Sox. The stadium was great and the game fun. A gentleman sitting next to me asked me if I watched the Indians play often during each year. I told him not very often and then leaned over to John and said that actually I had not been to an Indian's game since 6th grade with the School Safety Patrol!! That dates me since I do not know if there is still a safety patrol. It was fun going to the game. We were about 6 rows from the Indian's dugout. I was waiting for foul balls but none came near us. Well I will update the rest of the trip in another few days. It is back to work for me. I have a very busy couple of days.

It has been over a week since the last posting. We were in Scottsdale Arizona and believe it or not, there was no free high speed Internet service in the condo. I kept meaning to go to Starbucks and update the blog there but never made it. I will try to catch up. The weather the whole week was better than predicted. It was basically in the mid 70's with mornings and evenings much cooler. From the bottom up, the first picture I have is my first golf hole for the 2009 golf season and the next picture is my first drive. We played a course for just $25.00. It was 5300 yards for women and that was perfect to start the season. We were plopped down in the middle of a shot-gun start so the hole in the picture is actually number 13. I had not played nor swung a club in over 4 months so all things considered, I played well. The greens were fast and fun to putt. The first 6 holes took us about 1 1/2 to play and I thought "oh no, a 6 hour round". The groups ahead of us only played about 9 or 10 holes and we actually finished in about 4 hours 10 minutes. The top picture was taken at Canyon Lake on the Apache Trail. That was the first day and I made John drive the desert equivalent of the Northern California Pacific Highway. LOTS of twists and turns. That was our first day and luckily it got better from there on. He does not like those kinds of drives.