Chinese Food Tradition at the End of Vacation

We seem to have established a tradition on our last day of vacation before going back to work. We order Chinese take out for dinner, usually from Dragon Palace at 13825 N. 32nd Street (just north of Thunderbird).

After being away from home, we generally don't have a lot of food in the house and don't feel like cooking or shopping, so take-out is the perfect solution.

Some of our favorites at Dragon Palace are Sauteed Happy Family, BBQ Pork Appetizer. The Moo Shu Pork is also very good.

Here's a quick review that I did on Yelp.

Let's Rewind...
Life has been so busy for us over the last few weeks that I've missed posting about several wonderful outings that we've had, so I'm going to rewind a bit and see if we can catch up on some of the fun.

Back in mid-September we had one jam-packed night!

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We had the chance to ride the Phoenix Light Rail (aka Valley Metro) for the first time. After work, we drove down to central Phoenix with Marshall and Cathy and met some other friends, John and Suzi at the Metro station at Central Avenue and Camelback Road. Coincidentally, that's around the same place where I had taken pictures (above) a few weeks before when we drove down Central to Terry's musical "gig" at St. George's.

I like the new look of the area. It looks a lot different than when I went to Central High School back in the 70's. The Baskin Robbins and Lunt Avenue Marble Club are missing from the north corners of the intersection and of course the light rail fills the southwest corner.

Within minutes, the clean and quiet train delivered us just steps from Chase Field, so we could watch a Diamondbacks game with a great group of friends and folks from Open Door. The Dbacks played the Colorado Rockies and won 7 - 5. That was a nice bonus.

After the game, we were treated to fireworks above the stadium.

Then we heard two Diamondback players share about their faith. Stephen Drew and Blaine Boyer.

And to end the evening, we got a free concert by the band, Mercy Me also at the stadium. You could tell by watching him, that the leader of the band, Bart Millard has a sweet and gentle spirit and a great voice, of course. (Amy you need to look at his favorite artist/band and movie in his bio.)

They closed with one of my favorite songs. Actually I want it to be played at my funeral, o.k.? It's called "I can only Imagine" and it's about going to heaven.

After a long full evening we headed back to the Metro station to catch a ride back to our cars. The ride back was much more crowded, but still very smooth and fairly easy. A few other friends were on the same car on the train ride back...Don, Carol, Bruce & Ellen.

Soon we arrived at our Central and Camelback stop. It was after midnight, but well worth the long evening. We said goodbye to John and Suzi, then headed home.

What a fun adventure with a precious group of friends...and the next morning Terry and I had to get up and drive to Los Angeles to see Amy, Andrew and Kevin. Crazy weekend, but what a blast!

More on that to come...

Love the message in this art!
Check out this awesome art work that I saw when we were at the Second Saturday Coffee House last week downtown at St. George's !

This is done by Derrick Kempf a local Phoenix artist.

Sometimes I have to admit that I don't get some artwork. Sure, the colors and designs can be lovely or shocking or surprising, but it's hard to get into the head of the artist to see where it all came from. I love this collage because it is so fun to look at and actually provides a positive message to everyone who sees it. These positive reinforcements would be a treasure to have in any room and I love the cottage/beachy casual feel of the piece. Be sure to click the pictures to enlarge so you can see the detail.

I would love to have a collage like this one for my family room wall. The promises and identity statements that it conveys are excellent reminders of how God sees us all the time.

Here's another shot of some of his other work that was there. It was so nice to have all this great artwork to look at while the music was going on. Thanks Derrick, for sharing it with us.

Sorry to be MIA -

We had a busy weekend that I need to post about later, plus I seem to have a lot of odd tasks that need to be taken care of right now. Researching some upcoming travel, and so much more.

Here's a link to some photos I took this weekend when Terry played with Bob Ryan, a friend of ours, for a new Coffee House that's meeting at St. George's Church in downtown Phoenix. There's way too many photos (I need to cut them down) but I told them I'd take a bunch so they could use some for their future promos. This was the first time they did it and they're hoping to meet on the Second Saturday of each month, which is why it's called "Second Saturdays". I think I got a few good photos, but it's always hard to shoot musicians in low light because they're always moving...and I hate the washed out look of my flash. I need to start using my bigger flash for these kinds of things.

There was a great turnout, especially for the first time and the guys, as well as Amber Hunter, the opening act, did an outstanding job. This was only the 2nd time that Terry and Bob had played together, but things went very smoothly and they had a really nice sound. I know Terry had a good time and it would be great if they have a chance to play together more.

Chihuly Exhibit at the Desert Botanical Gardens

One of the things we did on Easter Sunday was to go to the DBG in Phoenix as the guests of our friends, Cathy & Marshall. We had a chance to visit the Butterfly Exhibit as well as the Chihuly Glass Exhibit which was thru-out the gardens. The two exhibits are so popular that you can only see them with a reservation, so if you go, be sure to call ahead to reserve your time slot.

We decided to go from 4 pm to 8 pm since we knew that would be a good timeframe for photos. The weather was perfect too! We went from late afternoon sun, thru dusk, sunset and dark. Since it's a lighted exhibit in the evenings, it looked amazing in all the stages we saw. I took what seemed like a bazillion photos and I'm thinking of entering a few in the Arizona Highways Photography Contest. There are a lot that I like personally, but it's hard to come up with something truly unique for a contest. I may enter anyway just because I like the prize that they're offering and you just don't know if you don't try. We'll see...
First I want to share a couple of fun photos of our friends. Marshall spent quite a while waiting patiently for a good shot of this lizard. I'm sure he got a better shot than I did.

He moved around to a different angle so this stick wouldn't be in the way and the lizard actually moved and "posed" on a rock for him. All the people around us stood and admired the lizard and Marshall taking pictures of the lizard.

Then Cathy posed for this fun picture. Doesn't she look so sweet? Well she is! We're privileged to know them both. I'm so glad God brought them to Arizona and to Open Door. They're such a precious couple.

Here are a few of my favorites from that gorgeous day.

Making Progress:

I'm feeling good about progress in several areas over the last few days.

First, on a personal note; I have actually exercised both of the last 2 days. Yesterday I set up my laptop on our treadmill and walked for over an hour while I caught up on email. Then today, Terry and I went for about a 5 mile hike at the Phoenix Mountain Preserve. If you look at the map we were on trails # 100, 8 and 8A. We entered off of 40th Street, just south of Shea. Fortunately, it cooled down a little after hitting 100 degrees earlier in the week. It was probably in the mid-70's with a really nice breeze most of the time. So I'm feeling good right now. I'll probably be sore tomorrow though, but at least it's for a good reason.

We've also made progress on the outside of the house. Here's the new paint job above. It turned out more pale than I expected, but I think I'm o.k. with it. I would really like to get some shutters for the front windows to add a little more of the dark green trim color to the mix, but otherwise I'm happy with it. And at least it's not beige like all the other houses on the street. I also think that when we get more landscaping in it will be a nice background for the plants.

Speaking of landscaping...we're beginning to make progress there too, even if it's just baby steps.

First, we were able to use an old french door to replace the ugly wooden gate to the little atrium in our back yard. This is the walled-in area that looks out from the picture window in our master bathroom shower. The view below is from inside the atrium looking out to the yard.

Also, after almost 5 years of living in this house we finally put some plants in the atrium. This is a similar color scheme of blues, purples and white that I'm hoping to do in the front yard. We bought a Blue Plumbago, (thanks Linda for the idea). I'm hoping to get a trellis and see if I can get it to grow up over the wall so we can see it in the backyard too. We also bought this nice Mystic Spires Blue Salvia, as well as purple and white African Daisies.

I am envisioning a gorgeous view of this beautiful cottage garden from the master bath once everything starts to grow and fill in. Now Terry just needs to keep it alive. I'm terrible at remembering to water outdoor plants, but he usually does a great job at it and keeps the plants going that I've planted. Of course, this area doesn't get a ton of sun, but I'm hoping the light reflecting off the walls will be enough, so we'll see how these do.

Keep your fingers crossed that they will thrive and grow and make this little corner of our world pleasing to look at. If they do well, I'd love to add a bird bath in this area as well. Can you picture a sweet little birdbath fountain in there? It would be nice, especially since the salvias and plumbagos both attract hummingbirds and butterflies.

Phoenix Hiking -

It's perfect weather right now for a hike! Current temperature in the mid-fifties. This morning Terry and I took a hike around Lookout Mountain which is near 16th Street and Greenway. It was about 2 1/2 miles around the base, and a pretty easy hike. Terry wanted to hike to the top but I knew I'd probably die if I tried it since I'm so out of shape. He accommodated me and went with the loop. I really love to hike, but am always tempted to take my camera and Terry prefers to go with speed when he walks for exercise. We'll have to figure out a way to meet in the middle. I was thinking if we do a hike like this again, we could do a moderate one, then Terry could hike to the top while I play with my camera...we'll see if that works.

Terry just bought a new book of hikes in and around Phoenix so we'll have to see what cool places we can find. Anyone want to join us on a Saturday morning or Sunday afternoon?

We need to get more hiking and walking in now before it get too hot. I need to make it a priority. I am horrible at setting aside time for exercise. I really hate exercise for exercise sake, but if we have nice scenery, then I forget about the exercise and it's worth the time. I know in my head that I need to exercise and my doctor says that I need to as well, so it's really crazy that I just can't make the commitment. I just always seem to find things that I enjoy more.

I'll be posting more today, trying to catch up a bit, so be sure to look at all my posts.

Check out our friend, Jay Haugen's New Blog!

If you have any interest in real estate market trends, current info, buying and selling tips, etc. you should check it out.

Jay has been in real estate for almost 30 years in the Valley of the Sun and has so much wisdom when it comes to all the chaos that's going on around us.

Check it out and set it up on your RSS feed to get his updates. You'll be glad you did.

Thunderstorms in Phoenix!

Wow! I love this weather forecast, but I don't believe it.

We'll see if we actually get a storm...maybe I can get a picture like this...

doubtful...but I'm optimistic

So get ready - next year the Super Bowl and the FBR Open will both be in the Phoenix area in the same week!

Talk about a crazy party city!

At least the Super Bowl will be in Glendale at the University of Phoenix stadium and the FBR is in Scottsdale. I wouldn't want to work at the airport or rental car companies that week. Anyone up for an out of town trip in the first week of February 2008 or should we try to get tickets for the game?