BRIGHT PARK

This year we had a very bright park, with all the decorations. Our neighborhood should have won a prize for the most lights. Here's one example.

They have a light parade in Casa Grande every year, and this year our float won first place. Here's a very bad picture of it.

Every Christmas Eve, we place 4000 luminaries around the park. This is part of our street. We live down at the end on the left.

Here's Don with a couple neighbors looking at the lights.

Hope your neighborhood sparkled like ours!

GLENDALE GLITTER

After we ate, we walked through the park and enjoyed the Glendale Glitter display of lights.

They had some unique types of lights we hadn't seen before.

This tree had the kind you put along the roof lines.

This palm tree was done nicely.

Very nice!

HAUS MURPHY

The other night we drove up to Glendale with Al and Sue Hansen, to see the lights, and had dinner at a German restaurant named Haus Murphy. We wondered why it had an Irish name,but discovered it was named after the park across the street. It was authentic German food. Here's a picture of Al's foot-long sausage with sauerkraut and German fried potatoes.

This is what my steak schnitzel looked like.

It had authentic decor and costumes.

They also have an outside biergarten and several people ate out there.

If you get on their website, you can watch the episode of Diners, Drive-ins and Dives when Guy Fieri was at the restaurant. Larry Wilson would love the place-it's ethnic!

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL

Christmas in AZ is a bit different than Iowa. For example, here are our neighbors, Keith and Carolyn, getting ready for Christmas. He's been toiling with a shovel, planting a cactus. Notice Carolyn, helping him by relaxing, talking on the phone.

Our next door neighbor, Wayne, waited for his friend Diane to visit, to decorate his park model. Here's an idea for all of you who have cacti in your yards.

Yesterday, we had a golf cart parade, complete with Santa.

Now, I don't want you to think that all we're doing is having fun. Here the men do an act of kindness for a neighbor that went back to Colorado for Christmas with their family. It only took a short time to spread that load of gravel. Just one of those Arizona Christmas works of kindness!

Since we know that you're getting some more of that beautiful "white stuff" again today, we thought we'd send you a picture of what our ground looks like.

Miss all of you-hope you have a very MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

A FAVORITE OF THE KATHY'S

Both Don's sister Kathy White, and our friend Kathy Fitzgerald, like to go to Sprouts. With the bad weather in Iowa, they're both counting the days till they come to AZ. (It's sunny and 70, and I'm in shorts!) But I digress. We made a stop at Sprouts and got some good bargains. I took a couple pictures for the Kathys.



The pineapple was delicious!

Hang in there girls-it won't be long!

LAST CHANCE

The other day, we took a drive up to Phoenix, and went to a place called Last Chance, which is Nordstrom's outlet store. We've been there once before to look for shoes, but didn't realize the importance of this place, until we read an article in the paper about it. Apparently, people line up and wait for hours for it to open, grab merchandise, and re-sell it on e-bay, although it's against their rules to re-sell it. One man apparently makes $30,000 a year that way. Obviously, we didn't go early in the day, but it still had a good crowd later on. It's downstairs, so I sneaked a picture on the way down.

We left without a bag, but others had carts full and many bags.

Even that guy up ahead has a bag. It was fun!

ONE MISHAP-NOT OURS!

We ended up being only a few miles behind Al and Shirley Ludeking from Decorah, on the way south. We spent the last two nights at the same campgrounds and had dinner together. It was nice. They left Socorro earlier than we did-at least they tried to. When Al pulled out of their spot, he somehow hit the faucet with his car tire and ripped it off. He tried to find someone at the office, but no one answered, so the water shot out with great force. Here he and Don are wondering how to find someone to shut the water off. (Great minds, you know!)

It took about 45 minutes and Ludeking Lake grew bigger.

The owner was very nice to Al, and told him to leave. We felt really bad for him. God knows we've had several mishaps! Before we left, the water had spread quite a way. We were parked back there where that 5th wheel is.

Of course the devil made me put this on-but I hope someone from the coffee group enjoys this! I also hope that Ludeking's still talk to me after they see this!

ON THE WAY TO ARIZONA

The last two days, going through New Mexico and AZ, you see a variety of things. We passed some dairies and a feed lot that seemed to go on for miles.

Cotton fields, picked and unpicked.

A little town that sells lots of chillies at Hatch New Mexico.

A pretty sunset.

And finally, our arrival at the park last Saturday. We've had a great time ever since.

Thank God-no problems along the way!

MORE CANYON

There were some curvy areas on the way down.


A pretty area.

There were about six areas that are prone to flash floods. This is an area where we drove through some water.

We saw our first prickly pear cactus.

On the way to the exit, they have a herd of longhorn cattle, but we only saw one.

It's not as big as the Grand Canyon, but it's grand in it's own way.

PALO DURA CANYON

Don wanted to see some real beauty, so we took an afternoon and went to see the beauty of nature at the Palo Dura Canyon. This is a view from the top.
The camera just doesn't capture the colors of the rocks like the naked eye.

The visitor's center and gift shop are in a building along the rock wall.

Quite a view through the window.

You're able to drive down into the canyon and take an 18 mile drive around. On the way, we saw several mule deer. This one jumped the fence in front of us.

ART OR JUST PLAIN UGLY

Another of those, "If you build it, they will come". I'm sure you've heard of the Cadillac Ranch-well, here it is! In a field outside of Amarillo, there are ten old cadillacs buried nose deep in the ground. You have to walk a little ways to reach it.

People spend time and money spray painting the cars and leaving the cans all over the field.

Here's a closer look.

Another "interesting" experience.

ON THE WAY

We spent a lovely Thanksgiving in Omaha with the boys. Thanks to Carrie and Russ for the delicious food. Thanks to everyone for the great Christmas presents! I took some really awful pictures, but had a great time. We drove back to Branson on Saturday and rested and shopped on Sunday. We started out from Branson yesterday, and stayed at Tulsa last night. Today we headed toward Amarillo, but stopped at Shamrock, Texas. We'll move on tomorrow to Amarillo-it's only about 90 miles, but Don wants to see the Palo Duro Canyon. Then to AZ so we can get warm!

MORE PICTURES

Jake, who is a senior, decided it was cheaper going in a group. Here he's pinning a leaf on his friend Dillon as a corsage.

Here's a nice picture.

This is Jake's group.

They all had a good time. We thought they cleaned up pretty good!

LATE PICTURES

We finally got a few pictures off the kids computer-homecoming was a few weeks ago. Better late than never. Jenna is in the middle with two of her friends. They're freshmen.

Here she's posing with her brother Dan, who is a junior.

Even her youngest brother Joe, got in the act.

Dan, with two friends.

All three of them went in groups to the dance.Here's Dan's group.