I prayed for rain.....

......But God wanted me to climb a mountain,

not build an arc!

Yesterday was the 15.5 mile National Trail Trek

held at South Mountain Park and my dear husband

signed me up for it!

It rained buckets and buckets during the week and even tho

really enjoy hiking I was really hoping that this event would be

rained out. I can remember hearing the "old folks" talk about a storm coming in...."I can feel it in my bones". Well now I seem to have become the "old folk" since every joint in my body aches when a storm comes in. Friday my body was one big ache and I just didn't want to do this hike

Besides my aches and pains I figured that with all of rain we had had that the trails would be muddy and slippery.

Well, I went.
The above picture is the group of friends that we

met at the hike. This picture was taken just before we hit the trail head.

So here I am hiking the mountain trail.

As you can see the trails were not muddy or slippery!

I was very thankful for that.

And as my friend Deb pointed out earlier this week (when I was whining)

the rain had made the air smell so fresh and clean.

There were a few puddles here and there....

And some rocky climbing....

But the panoramic views of the city down below

and the rocks and the cactus were breathtaking.

I've come to really love our desert scenery.

I'm looking pretty happy in this photo since

I've just made it to the top of a pretty steep climb!

Those tents down there at the bottom represent

LUNCH and the end of the trail for me.

I ended up only doing 7.8 miles of the 15.5 mile trail.

I probably could have gone a couple of miles further, but past this

point I would have had to continue on the full 15.5 miles,

and I just didn't think that my back could take it.

I really had nothing to gain, except possible injury, by pushing

myself to go to the end. I wanted to end on a high note, not

a broken one!

I truly enjoyed this hike. It was so nice spending the time

with my husband, seeing other friends and drinking in the

beauty of our mountains and city below.

Mother's Day Surprise!

On Saturday I was invited to spend a delightful afternoon with two of my favorite girls in the world.....Jenny and Jen. They wanted to take me out for pedicures, a movie, shopping and happy hour. We had a fabulous time. We also managed to run over to Jenny's new house to have a look around. And then there were some mysterious phone calls..............


And when we arrived back at MY house I was told that something was really wrong out in my garden and I really needed to quickly go out and look!

Of course what I found was a yardful of wonderful friends assembled by my sweet husband to surprise me for my 50th birthday!!!!!!! Which by the way, was actually 2 months ago!

How Many Times must a girl be reminded that she is FIFTY!!!!!??????





SURPRISE!!!!





Many dressed 50's style with rolled up jeans
and hair slicked back
.
Jen's grandma made her a poodle skirt for the occasion!





My dear husband and master-mind of this surprise
kept everyone's glass filled.
He bought a Margarita Maker especially for this
occasion. I'm anxious to try to make some Sonic style
smoothies with it this summer!



There was plenty of food from BobbyQ's
on the back porch.



Rafael and Jen filled plates with cake and ice cream.

Mike set up 4 banquet tables in the pool area.

It was a great night and it made me feel really special that my husband would plan this and so many friends and family came to help me celebrate. AGAIN!


Sunday, of course was Mother's Day!
So I got to spend another whole day with my family!




God has richly blessed our family with love, and laughter
and health and good times and lots of wonderful friends
and I am soooooooooo very thankful!

50.. Fit and Fabulous!

Well, 50, FIT and Fabulous was what I was shooting for, but I'll settle for 2 out of the 3! LOL! You'll have to guess which 2!

I celebrated the big Five - O on Monday by starting out my day hiking on the mountain with my neighbor and friend Jan. We hiked just over 2 miles and then I came home and did a little work in my garden. So far the day was pretty fabulous! My plans after that were to get cleaned up and then hit a couple of quilt/fabric stores and maybe a 2nd hand store or two. But the day was made even better when my friend Linda called and said that she was going to the very fabric store that I was planning on going to and would I like to go along. Now Linda is also the goddess of 2nd hand shopping! So not only did I get to go to the places I wanted to go to, but I got to share it with a good friend!

The day ended by spending a very wonderful evening at Caramba's with a whole tableful of special friends. Jo had arranged with my bunko group and some of the FNQer's to meet up at Caramba's to celebrate my half century mark. She brought a cake and everything! YUM!

Looks like everyone was having fun!

Jo's dear mother, who has since passed away, had this custom of smearing icing on the lips of the birthday girl/boy. Jo HATED this when she was growing up, but now continues the tradition............

I didn't mind one little bit since the frosting is my FAVORITE part of the cake!

One of the special gifts I received on my birthday was the news that my newlyweds have finally had an offer on a house accepted. They are in their 10 day inspection period. They had a foundation expert over yesterday to check things out since QUITE a few houses in this developement had had problems. I took some pictures while this was happening.

Here is the link to my webshots album:

http://community.webshots.com/user/crz4quilts

If all goes will they will take possesion of the house the first week in April!

Pretty Fabulous DAY!

What a Weekend!

I started off the weekend by finishing up my last customer quilt (to be done before the wedding). I took some pictures but somehow the picture I took of the whole quilt disappeared from my camera, so here are some detail shots of this lovely southwest inspired quilt. I'll have to ask Carla to send me a picture of the whole quilt!

Friday night was of course the Halloween party at the Boojum Tree. I think that one of the things I like most about this party is that my quilting friends like to dance! We have an absolute ball! I figured that I must have lost about 10 pounds just from dancing alone, but alas the scale told me something different. Stupid scale!

Friday Night Quilters

Back row: Katrina, Cheryl & Linda

Front Row: Tammy, Kathy, Sharon & Mary

Another great thing about this party is that my whole family attends. This year Darcy joined us!

Saturday morning I went shopping with Jenny to look for a dress for the rehersal. She found a really pretty white and black dress. We went to Fry's food store to get the Coke products that were on sale. I also bought a trellis that was clearance priced for my front entry way! How cool is that? $20 was a steal! Oh! and BONUS! I took the display model and all I had to do was screw the top part back together! I already had the plants, so I installed the trellis and planted the plants that very afternoon!

In the afternoon I went with Jenny and Rafael

to thier final wedding planning meeting.

Saturday Evening I went to a Margaritaville party at Tana's house. I was a little apprehensive about going since Mike was on his way to India and that meant I would have to go alone. But I went and had a great time with the many friends who were there, some of which I had not seen in ages!

On Sunday I was up bright and early and working in my secret garden. I worked on the ground under the gazebo area, trying to smooth it out and remove any scraggling grass. We plan on doing something more permanent in that area, but really didn't have time to get it done before the wedding.

I cleaned up all the leaves, groomed all the plants picking off any dead flower heads. I completely cleaned all the unnecessay junk out of the area that we tend to store there. I powerwashed the side of the house and the furniture and sidewalks. I installed a couple more screws in the bricks so I could hang some flowers. (Major task for me! I'm afraid of the drill!) Rafael and Jenny came over and helped me cut down and haul away a bunch of dead branches from the tree and then we finished installing all of the white lights in the tree. It was a long, tiring day but the yard looks o-so-nice!

To end the Evening I went outside and sat under my twinkling tree with a margarita and had a great visit with my mom, and then with Lisa.

The weather is beautiful here now.....

Troublemakers

I have these two friends (Carole and Christina) who are REAL troublemakers! I met them many years ago while teaching quilting classes at a Viking sewing store. Carole and Christina are machine embroiderers and I have finally turned them into QUILTERS! They have been after me for YEARS to buy a sewing machine that does embroidery and I have RESISTED! I resisted it because I knew I would LOVE it and it would take away from the time I have to quilt! Well, they finally broke me down and have been helping me learn some of the tricks of the trade.


AND needless to say............I love it and am becoming more and more addicted!





Here are some pictures of some of the recent embroidery projects that I have completed:

The completed bridal quilt top. As you can see I decided on Setting A,
mainly because I asked Rafael and this is the one he liked. The very day that I
finished sewing these blocks together Jenny told me that she liked Setting B!

Here is a close-up of the embroidery I did on the center of the quilt! I gotta tell ya! I was pretty excited with how it turned out!

This is one of the sets of Hand&Fingertip towels I embroidred as a gift for Jenny and Rafael. I love the way they turned out as well! I think I might like this embroidery stuff!

These two pictures are of Carole the trouble maker and Christina the troublemaker! They are posing beside the Egg Money quilt that they completed! They sure look like QUILTERS to me! Wouldn't you agree?

I've had a really busy week. We finally ordered some chairs for the living room. We have worked really hard on the secret garden and got some plants for that area. Jenny's bridal shower was today and a huge success. My daughter-in-law Jen was the party planner and she really did an excellent job. She included so many little touches that really made the day extra special. I'll post some pictures of the shower next time.

MadHatter 4 Life!

A few years ago.........actually QUITE a few years ago my husband coached a girls soccer team called the MadHatters. They were together for several years and formed a really special bond. They were a pretty good soccer team, won alot of games and such, but what they were really good at was socializing. Mike organized training hikes to be followed by a stop by Zuka juice. We had Soccer olympics at the beginning of the season and always a pot-luck picnic with the parents at the beginning and end of the season. We did a camping trip with some of the hatters and parents. We also hiked and camped down near Havasupi Falls. We had bonfires. There was always a Christmas break sleep-over.





Why am I writing about this? Well, when you form that close of a bond with people, even tho they are not part of your daily life anymore, you still wonder about them........what they are doing and such. So my friend Kathy and I started talking about having a MadHatters reunion.


It took place last night at one of my favorite places..........Caramba's!
Wow! was it ever GREAT seeing the girls all grown up!

Here are some of the pictures from the evening:

Seven of the Hatters attended

Nicole, Jennifer, Lacey, Kim

Amberle, Vanessa, Jenny

One is married, one has a baby, one has just started the nursing program, one is a second grade teacher, one is a biology major with a job at AZ game & fish, one just got back from South Africa helping the poor, and one is engaged!

It was really great to see them and learn about the wonderful adults they have become!

This picture includes the Hatters plus MIke, the coach and Paul and 3 of the brothers who were a big part of the team!

The parents were an awfully big part of the success of this team.