HOLIDAY IN YUMA!

I am back to blogging after spending two weeks in the sunny south, Yuma, Arizona.  It's interesting that Estevan is the sunshine capital of Canada and Yuma is the sunniest place in the U.S.A.  We saw an ad for workers from "the early days" that promised free board for days when the sun didn't shine!

It was cool when we first arrived in Yuma on January 28, but their "cool" feels pretty good when you are from Saskatchewan.  It warmed up to temperatures in the thirties before we left on Feb. 11 so we got to experience some very warm days too.  We noticed quite a difference when we got back to Regina as the forecast was for a windchill of minus 30º C that night!  But the roads were great and the Escape has a great heater so all was well.

So how do I put two weeks of activities into a blog?  Well, I won't give you the whole load at once!  I will start at the end and work back!  I turned a year older when we were away so I'll start there.  Celebrations began the night before when Ernie and Myrna stopped at DQ to pick up a heart shaped cake.  Myrna's birthday is on Feb. 15 and mine on the 10th so we shared our birthday/Valentine cake on the 9th and even had cake for breakfast on the 10th! 

Birthday "girls"

 Then we were off to Phoenix as our flight was for 9:40 a.m. on the 11th. We stopped for lunch at Blue Planet and were there over an hour as a motorcycle gang got there shortly before us and were waiting to be served as well.  No, they weren't Hell's Angels but a group of senior riders out for a spin!

 We enjoyed the drive through cactus country and got to experience a traffic jam before we got to Phoenix!  We had no deadline that day so a half hour delay didn't make much difference and soon we arrived at Myrna's cousin's place in Chandler.  I was fascinated by the lemon tree in her backyard.  I had never picked a lemon so here was my chance.  The tree was loaded and she said they had picked over 200 lemons already.

Soon we were on our way to Organ Stop Pizza, Myrna's choice for my birthday supper.  At her request the organist played "Happy Birthday" for me.  The place seats 500 with balconies and there was quite a line-up at the door on a Wednesday evening.



Then we were off to the Green Tree Inn for the night.  We enjoyed spending time visiting beside the pool in the courtyard.

We had our alarms set for 5:30 and met in the breakfast room at 6:00 for a great sendoff back to SK.  A complimentary shuttle van dropped us off at Terminal 4 at Sky Harbor Airport and soon we were through security and ready to board our West Jet flight back to Regina.  I met a new friend, Marta, in the seat next to me and we are now Scrabble buddies on Facebook.

Marilyn and Ray were there to meet us.  After a short visit over lunch at their place we headed for Torquay with a stop in Weyburn for groceries at the Co-op. (Lemons were 99 cents each there!)

We took it easy yesterday, got our bags unpacked and I worked on a quilt top that I had started before we left. This morning we saw on the Facebook site for Stagecoach Tours in Weyburn that they are planning a tour to Minneapolis in May for the Blue Jay/Twins games.  There are four games this time and one of them is on May 21, which happens to be Alan's birthday.  So that's in the plan now that I celebrated my birthday in Phoenix!

Tomorrow we celebrate our first anniversary and Valentines Day!  I better make a flapper pie, Alan's favourite.  I will continue to update next week.  Happy Valentines Day!