Yellow Jello

Happy 27th Anniversary to us! Yes we have been married now for 27 years. Want to know what we did for our anniversary? Doug carefully planned an event that we would do together. We went for Doug to get a colonoscopy! Happily he has a clean bill of health and the only thing the doctor really said to us was "everything is fine - see you in 10 years." So that is good. But Doug did suffer with the prescribed preparations. He had to fast before hand - with only laxative, clear fluids and Yellow Jello on Sunday. The ritual kept Doug away from church - needing to be within very short distance from a bathroom. The worst was seeing him drink the gallon of prescribed liquid Sunday afternoon. He had to drink 8 ounces every 15 minutes - TORTURE! But happily we celebrated the above mentioned anniversary tonight by taking Phoenix's new light rail into downtown Phoenix and eating at the Hard Rock Cafe - and no Yellow Jello!

Busy Bees

The past week has been filled with fun activities and lots of games. Our college students came home for Christmas. We only had 4 full days together so we squeezed in lots of fun. We played lots of games: Settlers of Catan, A Ticket to Ride, Mario Kart - Wii, Guitar Hero - Wii, Racko, Phase 10, and more. We had our annual White Elephant and Volleyball at the DeWitts. Note to self: buy kneepads for next year. We ended up with some great white elephant gifts - vinyl sweat shorts, colorful flowery kids bike helmet, a real white elephant earring holder, a christmas blanket, and a Bob the Builder mini lunch pail with snacks. We decorated a Gingerbread house. We went to see the Reflections of Christ display in Mesa. The photographer and the musicians were there to perform and autograph books and DVD's. It was nice. I took the kids to a Cardio Body Sculpt class at GCC. All the ladies there were curious as to who they belonged to. They have asked about the kids every day since then. The kids and I went to the Desert Botanical Gardens also. The bonus to that was that a world-famous glass blower, Dale Chihuly, had many pieces on display throughout the gardens. We saw cacti, trees, bushes, and grasses native to desert areas. We saw some displays of Native American grinding stones, pots, living areas, etc. But I think we'd all agree that the glass sculptures were just awesome! A real treat! We all went to the church to play some Pickleball. Dad had everything set up and gave us the rules and let us go. That was fun too. Frank Gallardo came over one night and we had pizza and talked about the good old days at Cortez High. We opened the Elf Chart gifts. That is always a hit. We woke up on Christmas morning. Scott was a little slow to get up - Shanna helped by playing a little "Hokey Pokey" on the piano. Before long all the gifts were unwrapped. We had our traditional breakfast of "eggs erroneous". We all tried out our gadgets and gizmos. Evan and Shanna went on a walk in the rain to try out his new GPS unit. The real highlight - for mom and dad at least - was a call from Elder Selin in Maryland. It was great to hear his voice and his laugh! We ended the day with a nice Christmas dinner (a first for us)! And last of all a Christmas Miracle! I had two Amaryllis plants start to grow and then sort of stop. I wanted to have them in beautiful bloom for Shanna and I failed. Lucky for me my mom brought over her healthy flower and it decided to bloom on Christmas day. Three of the 5 flowers opened and helped to beautify our day. But alas all good things must come to an end and this morning Evan and Shanna left to spend some time with her family in Oregon. We loved being together for those 4 days.

Chocolate Realtor

Remember when working with a realtor that it is always good to choose one whose family is in the Chocolate Candy business (here in Arizona Cerreta is a good last name for chocolates). When we go to look at houses they bring random boxes of yummy chocolates for us (probably a bribe). On December 23rd we arranged to look at a couple of houses while our kids were still here. Just before we left a Fed Ex truck pulled to the curb and came to our door. He left a LARGE BOX for us. We opened it and found a basket full of delicious chocolate and other culinary pleasures. Then when we met the realtor at the house he had a bag with several more mouth watering delights.

On the 12 Days of Christmas our Realtor gave to us:

**a bag of Peppermint Pillow Mints

**Slab of fattening Fudge

**Chocolate Almond Bark

**Cowboy shaped Chocolates

**Premier English Toffee

**bag of French Mint Truffles

**chewy chewy Caramels

**Camelbacks also known as Turtles

**assortment of dipped chocolates

**duplicate - English Toffee

**bag of salted Cashews

**and a box full of French Mint Truffles!

This is no joke either - these were all full sized boxes. Now we are looking for people to pawn this stuff to. Otherwise we'll be about 10 pounds heavier next time you see us.

Now that I think of it maybe I should remember when working with a realtor that it is NEVER good to choose one whose family is in the Chocolate Candy Business (unless you need to gain a few pounds)!

Only in the Desert!

Only in the desert will you see an event such as this one. A winter-time parade at night. Phoenix has had one for years. We are ashamed that we never took our family to this parade when they were kids. It is great! It is sponsored by APS - who Doug has worked for during the past 25+ years. And we could have bought tickets for CHEAP and had bleacher seating AND free cookies AND free hot chocolate AND free hot cider AND a free fun flashing light giveaway! And for longtime members of the Cheap Club you would have thought we would have discovered it sooner. But nooooo, we missed this one - until this past Saturday.



Anyway, I told Doug that I wanted to go this year. But we didn't buy tickets. We were going to deal with the masses of people on the sidewalks and just elbow ourselves into a space and stand and watch the parade. So when I mentioned it to someone in the ward she said her husband works for APS and had some tickets and they might have 2 extras. Shecalled me later and we picked up the extra tickets. It was wonderful!



We parked and walked to the parade route and right in the middle of the parade route there were a bunch of bleachers set up for APS people who had tickets. While the sidewalks were already crowded with people the bleachers were relatively empty. So we went through the gate and they gave us the free light-up thingy to go around our neck and some 3-D type glasses that showed multiple prisms when you looked at light through them. They also told us about the cookies and hot drinks. This was getting better all the time. We came prepared with warm coats and hats and a blanket but the weather was relatively mild and we didn't even use the blanket.



We were there about an hour early. But waiting for the parade wasn't too bad. We were easily entertained by the myriads of kids who were playing in the middle of the street. Some were playing soccer. Some had scooters, skateboards, bikes, trikes, in-line skates, etc. Some were tossing frisbees. And when the occasional policeman on a motorcycle came through the kids just barely moved to let them squeeze by. It was like being at a park. The activity was constant. And despite our concerns - when the parade actually started to get close, the parents claimed their kids and kept them out of harms way.

There was even an announcer that told all about each of the entries. So pretty soon we could hear the tenor voice saying: "Welcome to the APSh Feshtival of Lightsh. Thish year we have forty shix entriesh. Thish firsht one hash over forty thoushand lightsh." Do you get the picture. It was like the lishp that we do for fun. We sort of got a chuckle out of that. Why is it that so many people that announce or do the news or other public speaking things lishp? I don't know but it wash funny!

It was very dark and each "float" that came by was lighted with shiny blinking lights. There were the some larger helium balloons - miniatures of the ones in the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade in NYC. There were some bands who marched with lights on their uniforms and instruments. The band who actually played their instruments got bonus points from us. There were even baton twirlers that had their batons lit up. But as the performers and floats passed by we thought it was really well done. We completely enjoyed the event. So if anyone is here next year around the first Saturday in December - we'll spring for the tickets and take you to the APS Festival of Lights Parade - an event that can be successful - Only in the Desert!

It's a good thing

How many think Martha Stewart is a little bit of a show-off? I do. She does the most amazing things and does them easily and well. And she always finishes off with: "It's a good thing." So now I will be a little bit of a show-off. I had two great successes (three if you count the cookies that I just made that weren't totally flat and gross).

First - I wanted to make some bread. So I decided to make some French Bread on my pizza stone. So I went through all the motions and even got the slashes across the top just right. Here is my loaf of bread! Amazing, right?

Then I took things to another level by trying one of Martha Stewart's own TV recipes. I made her apple raspberry slab pie. It looked like a premier specialty pie in the Sweets Unlimited store that would cost like $40. It tasted good too. Here is the picture of the pie.

And Martha Stewart has it right - "IT'S A GOOD THING!"