A movie and buttered popcorn...mmmmmmm!

I had an 8 o’clock appointment with my hairdresser this morning. When I got back, we jumped in the car and headed for our favourite bagel café, the Kokobelli on Power Road. They have good breakfast bagel sandwiches, good coffee and the price is right. They have some tables outside where we can sit and enjoy the sun. When we got back home, I did some house cleaning then got on the computer to catch up on my blog. In the meantime, David took his bicycle to a bicycle repair shop because his back wheel was sticking again. They said it would be ready in an hour, so we went to Starbucks then picked up the bike on the way home. Turned out to be a broken spoke, which has happened before. If it happens again, we will have to replace the wheel.

We decided to go see the movie ‘AUSTRALIA’ so we had an early supper. We like to get there early but we were there a little too early. The earlier showing wasn’t even over yet. It's long though; 2 hours & 45 minutes so it was almost 10 pm when we got out. But it's well worth it. It's a great movie. After the movie, we just came straight home. Today the high was 71F (21C).

Hiking and Happy Hour..

Since we didn’t hike on Wednesday, eight of us went on a hike this morning to the Usury Mountains, a five-minute drive from the resort. We went up Pass Mountain trail but we were only going as far as the 'saddle', a 2-mile hike (4 miles return). The sun came peaking through the clouds once in a while and the temperature was in the low 70sF; a good temperature for hiking. This trail has a lot of switchbacks as you go up the side of the mountain and you get a really great view of the valley. On a clear day, I'm sure you can see for hundreds of miles. We were back around 1 pm and had lunch. Later on, David took a power nap while I watched TV. I was just about ready to fall asleep on the sofa when he got up and said he was ready to go for coffee. Figures!

At 5 pm we went to Happy Hour out on the patio where everyone brings food to share. After everyone had eaten, they turned on the karaoke machine. Of course, David and I just watched. It was a lot of fun. It’s the great camaraderie in this park that makes us come back here. The party ended at 9 pm and everyone went home. It was a good end to a fun day.

This is the front end of our hiking group on a switchback above us. I don't know if there is something wrong with my camera because my pictures are a little fuzzy.

We sat around for a little while before heading back down the mountain.

Micheline, Michel & David..



David and me..


This is the whole group except for me. I took the picture.

We took a different route down, following the wash instead of the trail. Since we were in the wash, there was a rock wall on either side of us. You see those some small caves in the rock. It looked like animals were using them as dens; someone thought they could be Javelinas. The clue was that there was some scat (poop) on the ground just outside of these holes.

Here's a funny piece of rock carved out by Mother Nature.

David standing it front of that rock.

I thought this was kind of neat. You can see a Saguaro cactus through this large hole in the rock face.

Another excuse to have turkey.

We had turkey for our Canadian Thanksgiving Day back in October with Adam and Leah. Luckily we love turkey because today was Thanksgiving Day in the U.S. and the resort put on a nice turkey dinner with all the trimmings. Everyone had to bring a side dish or dessert. It was well attended and the food was great. I didn’t pig out but I still felt full after. The people that organize and cook these special dinners at the resort always do a really great job. There were some tables set up inside the building and some tables outside under the covered patio. We were expecting rain later on this afternoon so David and I sat inside. Although it had been cloudy most of the day, the sun came out just when dinner started so those people who sat outside were quite comfortable. I had been fighting a headache for most of the day so David and I came back home right after dinner. Anyway, we wanted to watch the result show of ‘So You Think You Can Dance Canada’. We also got a 45-minute thunder and lightning show later on in the evening with about 15 minutes of heavy rain towards the end. The weather is supposed to start changing tomorrow. We sure hope so!

It's raining so no hiking today.

We always hike on Wednesdays but it was cancelled today due to the fact that it was raining. What a bummer! Again it wasn’t very warm; the temperature was around 69F (20C). Days like that are sort of depressing so we decided to go out for breakfast. It rained on and off all day so we just stayed home for the rest of the day. Except for a trip to the grocery store in the afternoon, there wasn’t much else to do.

I made what we call in my family 'Pate Chinois' (it's similar to Sheppard's Pie) for supper and baked it in the micro-convection oven. I made it with ground turkey instead of ground beef and it was very good. We even had enough leftover to freeze for another meal. It was the first time I used the convection oven successfully. Now that I know how to use it, it's much easier to use than a propane oven like we had in our other motorhome. With the propane oven, you don't know whether or not the oven has reached the temperature you want.

We ended the day by watching our favourite TV shows.

The weather is changing.

It was cloudy and windy this morning so we ‘wimped’ out on going into the pool for water aerobics. It was a cool wind okay…. ;-)

We attended the weekly activities meeting. We already know what all the activities are for the week because they are pretty much the same thing week after week. So it’s kind of redundant to attend the meeting but at the same time, it’s an opportunity to socialize, so we go. We don’t have anything better to do at 9 am on Tuesday morning anyway.

We had nothing else planned for the day except to bring the gifts for the two Christmas angels to Starbucks. So it goes without saying that we went there for our daily cup of strong java too. We did get a few sunny breaks but it stayed windy most of the day. The temperature was only around the low 70sF (low 20sC) but felt colder with the wind.

Starting our second week already!

We are starting our second week here. We've settled into our routine of walking and water aerobics for me, golf and water aerobics for David and hiking for both of us on Wednesdays. It's pretty much a carbon copy of what we did here last winter. I guess it's a good thing as long as we are doing something we enjoy. And we haven't given up our habit of going for coffee in the afternoon. We just have a different hangout here. There are no Tim Hortons so we have to frequent Starbucks. We never even step into a Starbucks when we are home! What's nice though is that we can sit outside with our coffee. It's just too nice to be inside.

So this morning I went for my walk around the park at about 7:40 am. David picked up his golf buddy Jim R. around 8 am to go golfing. At 8:30 am I came back to the rig to change into my swimsuit for the 9 am water aerobics. It had felt cold when I started my walk but you could feel the sun warming up by the time we were in the water. And the water is heated so it feels really nice. So far there are only about 6-7 women in water aerobics so we are not crowded. The park gets fuller after January 1st and that's when the pool and laundry room can be more crowded. But not to the point where you are elbow to elbow.

David was craving hot dogs yesterday so he bought some turkey hot dogs with 0g of fat and low sodium. They looked pretty good so I also had two for supper tonight. I don't usually eat that stuff but tonight I had a craving for them too. They tasted pretty good considering... and I didn't even burp once after.

We picked up two Christmas angels yesterday from Starbucks so tomorrow we are going shopping. I choose two girls. We have four grandsons so we are usually buying stuff for boys. It'll be fun to shop in the girls section for a change.

A much needed laundry day.

It's a little cool in the morning when we wake up around 6:30 or 7:00. I don't usually get up until David has turned on the furnace and warmed up the bedroom a little bit. After breakfast, I did some reading for about an hour. I'm really enjoying my book and at the same time, I feel sad to be coming close to the end. it's so good!

About mid-morning, I headed to the laundry room with my two full laundry baskets (with David's help of course). There are about 10 washers and 12 dryers so you don't usually have to wait to use any. I was done in about 1 1/2 hours and it was time for lunch. Again we ate at home. We are trying to eat at home more. We sometimes get carried away and eat out too much. Not good for the wallet and not good for the waist line either. ;-)

We spent the rest of the afternoon either sitting outside. We were eating supper when I noticed this beautiful sunset. I opened the window and took this picture from inside the motorhome.