Jack and Jill went up the hill, well not really

Well it has been a long while since I've posted anything so I thought I better write something.

A while back we were adopted by a stray cat. She had been in our back yard a few times, but always ran off when we came outside. well one day she was laying in the grass when we came out and she went over to the wall to jump over it. I started calling "kitty,kitty" and"meow". She stopped and looked and after at bit started coming towards us. It didn't take long and we were petting her and she was on Dale's lap.Over the next weeks she came during the evenings and disappeared during the days. We of coarse started feeding her and the adoption was official.

On the 10th of August I found the Yorkie that I had been searching for. He is four months old and weighs 5 pounds.We named him Jack.


He has been getting used to his new home and doing very well.The cat and dog have gotten used to each other. Dale has a morning routine of drinking his coffee out on the patio. The two each try to get all of the attention from Dale. In doing so they sometimes both end up on his lap.Now it has gotten where they clean each others face(not Dale's. no licking humans allowed), and enjoy it.

Another thing that Jack has been learning is how to cool off his feet. With some coxing, he goes into the pool. He mostly likes it on the top step, which puts the water below his belly. We also challenge him to swim by taking him out farther and then his feet start moving before they hit the water. He swims right back over to the step, gets out and heads for the chair cover to dry off. He is good at twisting and turning and rubbing to dry himself off. I am sure that it won't be long and he will be diving in on his own.

It took quite a bit and practice and training to get him to use the doggy door. After a little whining and being a bit scared he figured that he can go in or out when ever he wants to.

When we were telling some friends about the cat( who didn't have a name) and Jack the dog, they said we should call her Jill. So that is what we did. Now we have Jack and Jill (with no hill to go up).

Boogity,Boogity,Boogity, Let's Go Racing Boys

Dale and I went to our first Nascar Sprint Cup race at Phoenix International Raceway. We have been watching trucks and equipment going past our apartment all week as they head to the track. Now we will see it all up close. We arrived at the track by 8:00 am to find many people had gotten there ahead of us. We walked down through rows of semi trailers- selling all of the merchandise you could ever want of each driver.

After a quick check of our bags we were through the gates and on our way. More displays, food stands the Nascar on Speed area. We decide to head for pit row and come back later for the “Raceday” prerace tv show later( which we never made it back for.)

At gate 7 we got our pit pass ticket and head through the tunnel and inside the track. We walked over a catwalk that we could see the garages.

And then went down to the pits and looked at the pit boxes.

We went over by the tent where the drivers meeting was held . We saw Apollo Ono, Jared from Subway, Robby Gordon, the track chaplain-Bowers and one of the senior Wood brothers

Then we were behind the stage where driver introductions were taking place. We saw and took pictures of many of the drivers. We only got three autographs because they were all in a hurry to get on stage.

By now it is 12:50 and we have to hurry back through the pit area and the tunnel, over to our seating area and up too many steps to our seats in the Petty section OO row 20 seats 15 and 16. After the national anthem and fly over, Apollo Ono said the four most famous words in racing.” Gentlemen start your engines.” That is when I put on my headset. Even with those on it was loud. It is so different then on tv, it seems much faster and much louder.

div>You don’t know where to look there is so much going on.
As the race goes on there is a few cautions then the “big” one happened. Thirteen cars were involved, luckily not any of our favorites.

I had the chance to cheer for Jeff quite often as he led the most laps of the race. The race seemed to fly by and soon it was down to the last few laps. My driver, Jeff Gordon was running second and with 8 laps to go took the lead again to win the race.

Dale’s favorite, Jimmie Johnson, came in third . We were so happy. After the race we had to wait until Jeff was done with all his media stuff to come and operate the track hoe to take the first piece of the track out. They will repave it before the next race in November.

We are already thinking about the next race in the fall. we can’t wait.

SANTA'S HELPER

Well after being out of the work force for so long and getting settled into our new home, I thought I should see if I could get a temporary job over the Christmas season. Carol and me are traveling to Hawaii and joining up with Ryan and Erinn for a ten day vacation in the middle of January, so applying for any serious job would be out of the question until we return.
So I went to my favorite job site and found that Amazon.com was hiring for the Christmas season, so I went through the screening process and got the call I was hoping for on the last week of November.
Well having never worked in a factory setting before I wasn't sure what to expect. I was told that I would work 4 - 10 hr. day's, but on my first day on the job they shifted to mandatory over time week so then I was required to work a 60 hr. week at 4- 12 hr. day's and and extra 12 hr. day through the week.
So after some quick training I was sending packages off to expecting customers,Amazon is a high rated on-line shopping site and has a very high rating for customer satisfaction, so a lot of pressure is put on it's workers to perform with no problems or mix ups.Each day our shift was expected to send out over 30,000 packages so at 2 shifts a day that is a lot of boxes.
I was put on the loading dock the first week and I loaded trailers (wow what a work out ) I lost a few lbs. , and got back into shape fast. The next week I was put on a slam line where I put boxes together and put products into them ,added packing and taped them up and slapped a shipping label on it . I didn't do it all my self , we worked as a assembly line with 4 others.
To help with the monotony of the job I would think of myself as Santa's helper with all the toys that would pass through our line, heading for the family Christmas trees.
Now that the Christmas rush is coming to a close and shipping can not be assured before Christmas day ,Amazon has been thinning out some of the workers for the work load has been reduced.So each day everyone comes to work not knowing if it will be there last . To be honest if they let me go I wont mind to much for the experience showed me that I am not factory material, for the repetitious boredom would kill me. I give much credit to the ones that do this day after day.
As I am writing this blog it is just 2 days to Christmas and Carol and me wish you all a merry Christmas and a great and blessed new year.

I have thought about trying my hand at painting for awhile now. I have watched many of the "Joy of painting" shows with Bob Ross and thought he makes it look fun.when Dale and I were in the Hobby Lobby store a few weeks back we noticed a display advertising an up coming class for a Bob Ross style painting. Dale encouraged me to sign up for it. I went to the 5 hour class and came home with a completed painting.

I enjoyed it so much that I am continuing it at home. This is what I did with the help of a DVD that came with the paint set I bought.I took pictures as I went to see the progress.

I am sure I will do more with as fun as it has been.My Mom has always encouraged me to paint, she always said I could do it. I guess she was right. Thanks Mom.

From the top of South Mountain

We decided to go for a hike but settled on a drive to South Mountain. It is a city park that is 17,000 acres in area and is located just south of central Phoenix, hence the name.Its known to be about the worlds largest city park. We drove up to the gate and found a map to see where to explore. There were many hiking trails and also places you could drive to. We drove on a 5 mile road with many switchback curves at 15mph , and the road kept going steadily upwards.

All along the way were so many wonderful vistas. we stopped at Dobbins lookout which is at 2330 feet. Avondale like Mora is about 900 feet. So we were up there aways.

We could see downtown Phoenix.Also fun was watching the air liners sailing over head and landing at Sky Harbor airport, they appeared to be cruising between the tall buildings down town.

The area has a lot of farms on the south side and cotton is king, and it was time to pick cotton.

we took these two pictures when we got down near them

As we drove up farther we came to where the city had some of there tv and radio antennas at the top. There we could look down on the other side and see the city of Ahwatukee . We also saw some hawks soaring on the warm air thermos just above us .



Back at the bottom we stopped to look at the rangers station was originally at the front gate of the park made out of rocks found in this area and another building -not sure what it was.The area has horse ranches where you can rent a horse and take trips up and around the mountain.

It was a very nice drive and if any of you come out to visit us we can take you up to see for yourselves.

Note: I believe you can double click on the pictures to see them larger