2011 Graduations

WOW! This was definitely the year for graduations. First up was Crystal graduating from the University of Phoenix with a Master's in Business Administration. Followed by Nathaniel and his girlfriend Linda graduating from Central Washington University with a Bachelor's in Accounting and Actuarial Science, respectively. And finally, today we celebrated the graduation of Ashley Thayer, daughter of our good friends Angelita and Jerry, from Tahoma High School. Congratulations to all our our children. We are very proud of you and wish you all the success in the world.

Escape to Arizona

In late February, Maggi, Kevin and I left a cold Seattle snow storm in search of warmer drier weather. We flew into Phoenix and drove to Tucson where we stayed in the house of a friend (Seana) for the next six days. We golfed at beautiful courses and got to watch the pros play in the Accenture Match Play at the Ritz-Carlton Dove Mountain course. It was fun to see the flashy dressing Ricky Fouler.

At the airport anxious to get away from the snow.

I need a vacation!

We all flew 1st class on the way down. Nice.

As soon as we got to the Tucson area we headed off to squeeze in 9 holes before the sunset. The warm sunshine was a very welcome sight.

On Saturday we played at Ventana Canyon golf course. It was a very nice course. The weather was just a little cool, mid 60's, but dry.

Maggi is modeling her latest golf fashion here.

Maggi got her first birdie with us at Rancho Vistoso!

We had a great time playing in the sunshine.

Then we woke up to this! We got to experience one of the worst snow storms that Tucson has ever seen. Lucky us. We had about 4 inches of snow. This is a picture of Seana's house where we stayed with our rental car in front.

I built a snow dog in the back yard. No golf this day so we went to the mall.

Kevin and I played at the same golf course that the pros had played at two days earlier in the Accenture tournament. This is Kevin playing before a bunch of empty seats.

Even though this was a woman friendly course, I still found myself in all sorts of trouble.

These next pictures are of some of the cool cactuses we saw around the area.

There were lots of road runners running around.

The Saguaro cactus were so awesome. They were huge! They can grow as old as 150 years old.

We dropped Maggi off at the shuttle a day before we left. She had to get back for her class. It was a ton of fun hanging out and golfing with her.

Golfing in Arizona

This is my first attempt at posting a video. This is Maggi getting her groove on at Saddlebrook golf course in Tucson, Arizona.

Tiiiimmmbbbeeerrr!!!

Saturday morning at about 2:30 AM Kevin and I woke up to the terrifying sound of one of our huge trees falling to the ground. It was an eerie sight in the dark with the branches covering the driveway. The wind was blowing about 70 mph. We were scared to even go outside to look at the tree.

We were very lucky that the tree did not fall on the cars or the house.

The ground was saturated from days, weeks, months of rain. The tree just uprooted. There was a huge pool of water under the roots.

The force of the tree falling caused it to crush the earth, wall and asphalt.

As Kevin was trying to figure out the plan of attack...

...our neighbors were on the way over with lots of help to clean up our little mess. When I came out to help, five members of the Satko clan and John from across the street were there with chain saws, wheel barrels, and blowers. They jumped right in and started cutting off branches and hauling them away.

Jayson and the two boys arrived shortly after we got started. This was the beginning of a very long hard day for Jayson. He worked his butt off for us. I really appreciate his help. Kimberly watched the boys with the help of Jordan and Torrin in our powerless house while we worked to clear the tree.

Once all the branches gone we had to cut the trunk.

Cutting the tree at the bend in the trunk caused the remaining trunk to spring back into place with lightning speed and force. Pretty scary.

Jayson rented a splitter and helped Kevin and I cut up the huge rounds from the tree. This is one of the piles of what remains of our tree after a long long day. I am so very grateful to my neighbors and Jayson for helping us to clear out our big tree mess so quickly. Thank you very much.

Thanksgiving

This was a great Thanksgiving! I had both of my daughters home.Yeah!!! Kevin and I spent the day with Crystal, Kimberly, Jayson, Jordan, Jacob, Torrin, Carson, Maggi, Nathaniel, and Jayson's parents.

Maggi and I chillin' with Carson.

Carson in his "skinny" jeans. He is so European.

My little all American Jacob Dale.

Yummy yummy.

Food, food, and more food.

After stuffing the bird and then ourselves Jayson helped the kids build a snowman from what was left of the snow.

The next day Kevin hauled in all the Christmas decorations. Usually I insist on postponing decorating for Christmas until after my birthday but this year since we have the little girls here we decided to get the party started. Can you find the kitty in this mess?

So, while I was in demolishing the house, Kevin and Nathaniel ran off to the store and came home with this...

A 12 FOOT LIGHTED SANTA CLAUS!

Kevin was right, the girls love it.