Wintering in Arizona

February 13-16, 2010

The Lost Dutchman Mine and Ghost Town were just up the road from where we were staying in Apache Junction. The kids enjoyed some suds (below) while they belly up to the bar!

Grandma and Grandpa Thompson (right) are finally retired and wintering in Arizona. We have them to thank for the accommodations and an awesome 4-day weekend!


The pool (left) was a delightful 82-degrees and was warmer than the air temperature. We took full advantage of the pool and spa with intermittent trips to lay out in the sun.

Interesting weather in SoCal

Three days of rain (video below) in Southern California is unusual. Yorba Linda received over 6 inches of rain--not bad under the drought conditions.

Double rainbow in our backyard (left). A beautiful view after 3 days of rain...the most we've ever had since we moved here.

On the forth day after the rain we woke to clear skies and views of the snow covered mountains (above). We had planned to go sledding with the cub scouts, but the conditions were too rough so we'll wait until next weekend.

The first day of 2010

Our adventures continue in the beautiful state of California. Today we visited the Los Angeles zoo for the first time. The kids enjoyed watching the zookeepers throw bananas to the chimpanzees. Autumn and Ashlyn's favorite animals in the zoo were the baby foxes. They both said, "they are soooo cute!" Layne's favorite animals were the African wild dogs. The kids also enjoyed the three mere cats that seemed to pose for a picture. Ashlyn named them Alvin, Simon, and Theodore.