A sad day in Prescott

This is just beyond my understanding.  The City of Prescott allowed a college student to design and build a bench in a city park.  She worked on it for weeks, at no expense to the city.  When she was near completion, they told her it was unacceptable and changes would be required.  She has graduated and needs to return home to MA so she formed a committee to complete the City's requirements for the bench.  The City ignored her committee and plans and destroyed and removed the bench without warning, in the dead of night.  Hundreds of people in town had contributed to the art in the bench and supported its completion.  I am astounded at the audacity of the City in handling it this way.  Actually I am sickened by the way they handled it.

Grandkids



New Great-Grand-dog in Omaha.  This is Hannah with Bailey.

Watching Santa Claus movie with Jordie.

 We spent a great, fun day with Taylor and Hannah at Vala's Pumpkin Patch.  Lots of stuff to do there...

Mini-golf under black lights - cool!

Best Dump Station Award

Camped along the Platte River

My 2011 award for Most Beautiful Dump Station goes to Two Rivers State Rec. Area in Venice, NE, just West of Omaha.  (We have to wonder though how a park with 200+ campsites manages with just 1 dump station.  Summer Sundays have hour long wait times)

Beautiful!

Gregg's activities

Fishing in San Carlos, Mexico with Fred and Rick

They'd gone there to sell Rick's boat.

View from Fred's condo balcony - wow!

Joint efforts brought in 2 big Dorado that they had cooked for them for dinner at a local restaurant.

Another view from Fred's balcony - Wow again!

In March Gregg had skied in Flagstaff with Sheila.

...where they saw this guy that plays his sax as he skis!

Oh yeah, one of Gregg's favorite things to do - car shows with his brother Gary.

Prescott

Tsunami on the Square - annual June arts festival.  I love it!  So crazy.

OK, I've learned my lesson. I can't leave my blog for 6 months and then expect to catch it up in one day.  Can't be done.  This has taken 2 full days now to get caught up and it's a pretty sparse job of it, a little disjointed.  But better than nothing.

On a Prescott Walking Tour with Jackie - visiting Hotel Vendome's Ghost's room.

We Prescott Friends of Sherri miss her after losing her to Leukemia in March.  We added a paver for her in the Prescott State Centennial project at City Hall.

We "adopted" my daughter Sarah's cat KC, 16 1/2 year old really cool cat, for about 5 months this year.  She's now living with son Andy in Tempe.

Finally!  I've wanted a new front door for YEARS!  We finally stayed home long enough to get it done!  New house trim color too and the whole exterior got a power wash.

I took 3 Mural Tours this summer with these two Prescott mural artists, Maggie and R called the Mural Mice.  This one with a PEO group.  Our public art murals are INCREDIBLE!  Chock full of Prescott and world history, works of wonder.

Current public art project in a park in Prescott - very interesting controversy surrounding this one.  Hundreds of comments are on the newspaper website, protesting and defending this work.  It's amazing how volatile people can become over something like this.  Seems there are people in town who absolutely despise the public art and the young artists and students our town attracts.

Girls' Vacation in Cape May, NJ

Randy, me Linda, Betsy on the beach at Cape May, NJ

Three of us from AZ left on my birthday, 9/9, to meet up with 2 more girlfriends from IL in Philadelphia, PA.  We all went to high school together in the 60's and travel together every once in a while to celebrate our long friendship.  After a day in Philly and a little tour from Betsy's sister Debby who lives next door in Media, PA, we drove our rented van to THE SHORE!

Me and Randy - can't believe Shirley caught that shot just right - one try!

The cool house we rented - walking distance from everything - 5 bedrooms, 4 baths.

Ready for the beach!

We chose Cape May as a result of looking for an Oceanview Restaurant on-line.
We'd had a hard time choosing a place to travel to in the past and had enjoyed this joke...

A group of 40-year-old girlfriends discussed where they should meet for dinner to celebrate their birthdays. Finally it was agreed that they should meet at the Ocean View restaurant because the waiters there had tight pants and nice buns.
Later, at 50 years of age, the group once again discussed where they should meet for dinner. They easily agreed to meet at the Ocean View restaurant because the food there was very good and the wine selection outstanding.
10 years later at 60 years of age, the group once again discussed where they should meet for dinner. Finally it was agreed that the Ocean View restaurant would be a good choice because they could eat there in peace and quiet and the restaurant had a beautiful view of the ocean.
When at 70 years of age the group discussed where they should meet for dinner, it was agreed they should meet at the Ocean View restaurant because the restaurant was wheel chair accessible and they even had an elevator.

10 years went by and, at 80 years of age, the group fretted about where they should meet for dinner. Finally it was agreed that they should meet at the Ocean View restaurant because they had never been there before.

Betsy, me, Debby, Shirley, Linda, Randy

Parties in Prescott

PEO formal party for fundraising.  Girlfriend Cheryl headed it up and we were VERY successful with the fundraising in addition to having a GREAT time at the Smiths house.

There is no lack of social life in Prescott!  When we are there, we are busy ALL the time.  Sometimes I think we travel a lot just to get life to slow down a bit.

Linda and Bob Smith throw the BEST parties!

My Prescott girlfriends take me to lunch for my birthday and try out the bathing caps that I'm taking to NJ for my high school girlfriends...Sandy, Martha, Marty, Me and Sheila.

Martha made me a fabulous birthday cake!

Happy Hour Party at Sheila and Paul's - Sheila, Martha, Marty, Me, Lynn and Sandy 

Mike, Paul, Bob, Domenic and Bob

Linda, Sandy, Sheila, Gregg, Mary and Martha

Prescott Digital Scavenger Hunt

I finally got to try out an idea I'd been working on for years...a Digital Scavenger Hunt.  I made a deck of pictures of things within walking distance of the Prescott Courthouse Plaza for each of 5 teams that participated.  They went out looking for the items pictured, took their own digital photos to prove they'd found the things, and hustled back, hoping to be the first back with the most items found.  Turns out they all had a great time though none of them found all 45 things in the 2 1/2 hours they had.

End of the day - great party at Smith's house.