TEMPE LAKE, DECOR TEAM

We finally took the time to drive over to Tempe Lake in Tempe. One of our co-workers said they kayak on  Tempe Lake, wanted to go see if we would want to take our kayak out.

It is  a nice lake, especially in the middle of a large city and pretty remarkable that it is right in the middle of a desert! We were surprised it was so large, we thought it was just a small lake.

It was a nice warm day and we enjoyed walking around, afterwards we had lunch for the first time at Cane's  Chicken. This is our new favorite chicken place!

We ordered Smart Tile off the Internet to put around the fireplace

Darrell did a beautiful job!

We are very happy with the results!

We were very busy at work. Trucks were bringing back all the Christmas and New Year's decorations back from all the resorts.

Oh..........where to put it all!!!

Every morning we have a meeting and  Mikki goes over what needs to be done for the day.....she always starts the day out with a hug for each of us!

We were  working  with a group of awesome folks!  

Mikki told us about the middle of January that she had hired "our friends" John and Kerry to work next year......we were so happy!!!! 

We saw a job on  Workamper.com in Oregon working for the Corps of Engineers that we were interested in bidding on. I started the process of  getting a DUNS number and after that registered with SAMS, the government bidding program. It took a lot of work and time, but finally, we got it all done and sent in  our bid. Unfortunately, we didn't get the bid, we were disappointed, but in the future we are all set up to bid other jobs, if we choose.

Sherry finally got her new fifth wheel to Florence and we wanted to go check it out.  We invited Jim and Gayle to go along, they are friends of Sherry's, who live just down from us. Sherry met us at LB's, a mexican restaurant in Florence.

Yummy food, good friends,  and mango  margaritas!  Life is Good!!

We loved Sherry's new place!!

When we were in Washington state this past summer, we were watching  Diners, Drive-ins  and Dives and a restaurant in  Gilbert was featured. Gilbert is not too far from us.  I wrote it down and one day we went to check it out.

Joe's Farm Grill

When we stepped in the door, there was quite a line!

We placed our order and found a table, this is a busy place!

Darrell had a cheeseburger and onion rings. He said it was very good! 

I had the grilled wedge salad.....lightly grilled iceburg lettuce with chunky blue cheese dressing....to die for!

As we were leaving, we noticed this sign.........

It says "DO NOT CLIMB ON TREES......RISK OF FALLING & SCORPION STINGS! OUCH!!

In February, Tammy from Decor,  called to say she had free tickets for us to the Osmond Brothers show. We were tickled, the first show we've attended this year. It was fabulous!

Later on in the month I joined Grace Methodist Church, after attending two membership meetings. I  am  a Methodist!

I love this church, so happy to have a church family!

WORK, HAPPY NEW YEAR 2017

Cal-Am has thirteen resorts and Decor furnishes all the decorations for all the events. After all the Christmas was delivered in early December, Decor Team started working on the New Years Party decorations.  That had to be ready to go the week following Christmas. It was a little intense, but it was ready on time and delivered. Delores suggested I go to some of the resorts to see what they do with all the stuff we send them.

 So, on Friday after Zumba, Darrell and I went to Val Vista, their theme was Egypt. It was amazing!!

Then it was on to Good Life, their theme was Peacocks.

 It was beautiful too. 

The theme for Sun Life was Damask

 Sun Life is the smallest RV Resort, so this wasn't as grand, but very elegant.

We stayed home for New Years Eve. There were fireworks going off, Darrell stayed up with Maggie until they were done, shortly after midnight.  I was in bed by 10:00.

Kerry and John came Monday, January 2 and got their "old" spot, next door to us.

It was wonderful spending time with them! They were only here three days!! They came over to Decor to meet Mikki, trying to  get them set up for next season to work in Decor. Hope so! They left for Yuma for the winter.

CHRISTMAS PARTIES, STUFF IN BETWEEN, CHRISTMAS

The Decor Christmas party will be Friday, December 16, which meant we had three parties that week. We started out our party week on Sunday, attending the G street  Christmas party. We met more of our neighbors and had a good time!

We had a nice dinner and then it was time for gifts!

When they called your number, you went up and chose a gift, before you opened it you had to say whether or not you were keeping it or taking  a gift someone had gotten before you. If you said to keep it, you had to open it and show everyone.

Lots of wine presents, but the two most popular presents was a martini set and a metal lizard.

That lizard and martini set  changed hands many times!

Our gift was a box of cookies.....Darrell was happy!

The South Dakota party was Wednesday. Wally Bork, Darrell's boss at Knecht's in Rapid City sat with us and introduced us. There are a lot of Rapid City folks in this park. We had a great dinner and enjoyed catching up with Wally and Linda. We were surprised to learn the South Dakota dinner is held once a month during the season.

The Decor Christmas Party was held at Mikki's house. Lots and lots of food! It was a fun time too! 

I was working on my tan, laid out once on a towel on the cement.....it was way too hard, so we went to Goodwill and bought me this lounging chair.

Sherry asked if Darrell would go with her to look at 5th wheels again. She was seriously thinking about buying one of those that we had looked at. Of course Darrell said he would, I went along to help with Baxter.

Darrell and I really loved the fireplace! It had flames!

Baxter loved it!

So, with Baxter's approval, Sherry bought it!

We were happy for her and Baxter!
Wednesday was the safety meeting at work, we all had to sign a sheet saying we would be there for that. It sounded like a big deal!  There would be pizza at the safety meeting....another enticement to come. The safety meeting maybe lasted five minutes, we had our pizza and then Santa came and gave us each presents! Mikki spoils us!!  I love working for Mikki! Again, she is so generous!
We rented a shampooer from Home Depot and  Darrell shampooed all the carpet. It looks really nice. Since arriving here we have washed every wall inside and out, ceilings, cleaned all the closets, drawers, kitchen cabinets, this was the final chore.
To my surprise, Darrell started searching the Internet for us a new fireplace.  We found one we liked and ordered it. It came the 22nd of December. We took it out of the box and plugged it in, we love it.

I had planned on going to Christmas Eve services, but it was a cold, windy, wet Christmas Eve. I decided to stay in my nice, warm house. I made scalloped potatoes to take to the Christmas dinner at Sun Life. Shari and Ron were the co-hostess and  invited us to sit at their table. Everything was perfect!

What a great bunch of folks! We had a wonderful dinner! Cal-Am provided the ham, everyone brought a dish.