This is love…

Posted on April 26, 2011 by April

^“For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.” 1 Corinthians 15: 3-4

Thank you Jesus for suffering on the cross and bearing the cost of the sins that I could not pay. How blessed it is, on the third day that You rose again! Thank you for the hope and the salvation that your sacrifice brought humanity. And for forgiving me, a humble sinner who has found life in Christ. It is only through You that we can be saved, and that we can truly know what love is.

I need an Armadillo

Posted on April 20, 2011 by April

Yay! We have grass! It’s not much to write home about, but it’s green! Which means a lot when you live in a water conservative desert city.

And not only do we have green grass, but the apricot tree is sort of coming back.

Never mind the dead branches in the middle, those are Annie Dog’s signature. (She likes to jump into the plants and trees when we aren’t watching.)

Speaking of dogs, the grass would be greener and more plentiful if it could actually be watered. Annie and her assistant Goldie, tend to enjoy chewing on hoses, and rendering them useless until being meticulously repaired by Bubba.

Here are the most recent victims…

Hopefully these poor unfortunate souls can be repaired and re-used in the front.

I know you can’t count them, but there are FIVE hoses there. Five hoses that watered the once pretty yard. Five hoses that only lasted a couple of weeks, sometimes a couple of days, due to the rotten beastlys that I have chosen to share my yard with.

Numerous methods of curtailing the hose chewing have been attempted. We have used a quick connect, to remove the hose entirely from the yard, hence, removing any temptations from Annie’s habitat.This didn’t work, because it curtailed our watering habits since the hose needed to be brought in from outside the yard and connected to the faucet. Then, we used a hose reel. This worked pretty well, as the hose lived inside a box, which effectively concealed and protected it from our canines. However, the tangled mess that became our hose was too hard to deal with. Frustration ensues…So to end the frustration, I am currently looking at some different watering options, but that’s a whole different post.

The hoses and sprinklers are not the only things getting injured around here. Friday while Bubba was trying to repair yet another chewed up hose, he cut through the hose and through his finger.EEK!

Three hours at the urgent care and six stitches later he was good to go.

Maybe it’s time to invest in one of these…

Via

I love the pooch they have on their site…

Via

That look of utter disgust is just hiliarious. That’s the look I want my doggies to make the next time they try to chew through an expensive hose. Of course, I don’t want them to get hurt, I just want to discourage the hose chewing and plant-eating a bit.

By the way, does anyone want two “free” dogs?

Bearizona

Posted on April 14, 2011 by April

Sorry for the lack of posts recently. Bubba and I have been out of town, and frantically trying to get the house and yard together. (Remember, we are planning a belated backyard wedding reception this summer. At our house, that is currently a dusty hot mess!) With two dogs and two jobs, and only two sets of hands, it can be challenging to get our projects done. And even harder for this little shutter bug to pull out her camera and document all of the work done and the miles traveled. Or maybe it’s just that we’re two lazy procrastinators that plan on putting everything off until the last minute. Let’s go with busy….

My sweetheart and I, mainly I, thought it was time to head out of town for a little adventure. So we left our brat dogs ,Annie and Goldie, with Grandma (aka my mother, by the way, she really hates being called Grandma to a couple of rotten muttlys!) And set out to see the Grand Canyon, one of the 7 natural wonders of the world!

Along the way we saw…

Teepee’s…

At the Wigwam Motel…

And classic cars…this one was Bubba’s favorite.

And I got to meet a celebrity!

Tow Mater! I couldn’t get his autograph, he was having a hard time holding the Sharpie.

After that, the weather turned cold and we didn’t make many more stops until we got to Williams AZ, which according to their welcome sign is, “The Gateway to the Grand Canyon”. They should be paying me for this promotion ya know 😉

Upon arriving in Williams, AZ (the gateway to the Grand Canyon) high’s were in the mid 40’s and it was too late to visit the Canyon that evening. So off to bed we went, with dreams of hiking and ohhing and awing over the giant hole (not the one in my head, but the natural wonder of the world). But not before touring the little town of Williams.

This church was super cute, I love old churches.

And we visited Bearizona,I didn’t really get to see what this was about, but seeing all the beary good billboards (sorry, I can’t resist a good pun!), I at least wanted to stop and take a picture of the gate.

And the sign…

Doesn’t it look like he’s holding his paw out for your cash?

The next day, we woke to snow, lots and lots of snow. The nice people over at the Weather Channel predicted an accumulation of 10 to 15 in that afternoon and into the night, and very low visibility. Meaning, that a trip to the canyon would just be a nice view of clouds and fog. That’s when Bubba and I decided it was time to move south, to Phoenix.

We had hoped for warm sunny weather once we drove the 2 1/2 hours from Phoenix to Flagstaff, and that’s just what we found our first afternoon there. However, the next morning we woke up to rain and cold. Not exactly what we had in mind. But on the bright side, we did get to stay in luxury suite, at least it was luxurious to small town folk like Bubba and I.

We had a balcony! I’ve never stayed in a hotel with a balcony before, here’s our view, not very glamorous, but it sure beat the brick wall we’d had the night before…

And our own hot tub, now that’s something I could live with…

Since it was cold and rainy, I was able to talk my Bubba into taking me to a magical place I had only heard about in the blogosphere….IKEA! We don’t have one in our neck of the woods, so it was the highlight of the trip for me.

I’ll have to do a post about all the loot I found, after seeing the cost of shipping, I really wish I had spent a little more time shopping.

After visiting the mecca of all that is good and cheap, we were ready to fill our bellies. We’d heard about In-n-Out Burger, and since it was another stop that isn’t found here in the Duke City, we gave it the ole college try.

Cheap, fast, presentation was lovely, but not something I’d be craving in the near future.

After we were in-n-out of In-n-Out, it was time to look for the AZ State Capital building. No such luck, but I did get some nice shots of these yellow trees that I just fell in love with, you can also see them from the balcony of the hotel. Wonder what they are…

Here’s a close up…

After getting lost numerous times, we decided it was time to head home. To give you an idea of what the trip home was like, here are some shots I took along the way.

See those snow covered mountains? We ended up driving over those!

This was taken just outside of Gallup,what’s that white stuff you ask? Yeah, that’s snow. And yes, I am a wimp when it comes to that stuff. By the way, the roads got icey right after I took this picture. I was too scared to take a shot of the ice. And yes, again I’m a wimp.

Thanks for being kind and sitting through my version of a vacation slide show! This will be the last for a while, so you won’t have to worry about avoiding eye contact to keep from hearing about my travel escapades.