Beating the heat with the grands

At the beginning of the week that Kim was here, it was cool and comfortable, but the heat started ratcheting up during the week. 

Since the pool is not open for younger people until after 11am, we decided to enjoy card playing inside in the morning. Carl thought that the girls were looking like they were serious card sharks, so he added some props in the middle of the table to make it look like we were participating in some really serious gaming! If you look closely, in addition to the cash on the table, a couple of credit cards and an AARP card have been pushed in for the bet!

The game we were playing is called "Sevens" -- and there is no betting involved... all of the girls quickly identified strategies that could improve their chances and possibly thwart other players.

Rules for Sevens as we learned it

Once the pool hours for kids opened up, Carl and Kim and the girls headed to the pool...

... they had quite a nice time and pretty much had the pool to themselves.

While there are two pools in our community, only one is available for children (under 18) to use, and the hours that they are allowed to use it are limited.

Mother's Day Video

At our church service here in Mesa, they showed a video "Becoming Your Mom Support Group" -- I thought our blog readers might enjoy it too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87NKcROF9Bc

Happy Mothers Day! 

Bocce with Kim and the girls

Carl had a dentist appointment, so Kim and the girls and I decided to try playing bocce. The girls had played before, but not on formal courts -- they were very good at it!

Kim and Lianna won by a wide margin!

 

Daughter Kim visit

Daughter Kim and granddaughters came to visit -- they were scheduled to come for spring break, but flights did not cooperate (and that turned out being the week that Carl found out he had pneumonia and ended up in the hospital, so maybe it was for the best). They had said that they may be able to come after their school was out for the summer, and were able to get flights, so they came the first week of May.

We headed to Usery Mountain Regional Park to go hiking. It was a beautiful cool morning. 

The girls studying information provided on the signboard.

Climbing up on a rock

Near the summit of Vista Trail

We saw these soybean-like pods on the Palo Verde trees...

... it turns out (according to Google) that they are edible and, when green, similar to edamame (aka green soybeans) and a good source of protein.

Granddaughter checking whether the barrel cactus is thorny!

We had had a cold front move through so had a couple of really gorgeous days while they were visiting.

Golf rules for seniors

We saw this posted in the bulletin board area at the post office:

I thought that a couple of friends/readers of this blog who are golfers or married to golfers might get a chuckle out of it!

Another century plant

I had posted about century plants blooming in our community a couple of months ago (https://journeyinamazinggrace.blogspot.com/2026/02/century-plants-about-to-bloom.html) -- one sent up a flower stalk a few weeks ago on the block where our RV lot is located...

Since this one is right in front of our friends' house, you can possibly better see how tall that flower stalk is -- probably 20' tall (it extends up into the fronds of the coconut tree). Doc (the owner of the house) said that it grew in about 4-5 days.

This stalk is much later than the others to appear -- the blooms have not yet fully appeared. On the ones that I posted pictures of earlier, the stalks have bloomed and died and the host plants are dying, but there are "pup" plants in the same area of ground.

Miss Kitty on the hunt

Carl has stopped showing mouse videos to Miss Kitty because she became so demanding for them. But a few days ago, he put up a second monitor on his computer and put a mouse video up on it for her to see...

... once I got her to focus on the computer monitor, she was quite energetic going after the mouse...

... at this point, she had actually stepped on the computer mouse so it brought up a grey box with selection items on the screen, but she was still going after the mouse on the video...

... her paw looks small here because it was in motion and blurred.

She enjoyed the video for a while, though she went to the edge of the monitor and looked behind it as the mouse hole in the video makes it appear that the mouse is escaping behind the monitor. She couldn't find the mouse behind the monitor and so got bored.