East Valley Pops Orchestra

We got to hear the East Valley Pops Orchestra here at Venture Out...

The Orchestra set up on the west side of the ballroom, as the whole orchestra could not fit onto the stage in the ballroom.

Lots of Venture Out folks were pleased to be able to hear the orchestra.

A full sized orchestra, largely made up of retirees with a variety of musical backgrounds, many just winter visitors to the east valley area!

Information about the orchestra: https://www.eastvalleypops.org/ 

A video of one of the songs that was played: https://youtu.be/UWhtHgGd_yU
 

Arizona Two Step Lessons

We took Arizona Two Step lessons this winter -- 5 weeks of lessons -- here at Venture Out. 

Dennis and Sandy Boone were our instructors

At the end of the lessons, Dennis and Sandy demonstrated what we had learned so we could record it and be able to re-review it and practice --- I uploaded it to YouTube: https://youtu.be/wjngVYydNLY

There are additional lessons available ("intermediate" level), but we think we've learned enough for what we want for now. We're hoping we'll do enough practicing on this that we won't forget it!

Creme Brule' French Toast Fundraiser

The Ham Radio group had a fundraiser of Creme Brule' French Toast on a Saturday morning. We went in to the kitchen on Friday afternoon, and then back early on Saturday morning to cook and serve...

Pat was wrapping utensils...

Katie was dealing with cooking the sausage links...

Ted was cleaning pans...

Ken and Chef Arthur in the Baja Bistro

Alex and Erwin also in the Bistro

Line up of the customers for the breakfast

Serving line

Serving line from the other side

Delivery of the French toast to the serving line from the kitchen

Nick cutting the French toast to be ready for serving

The breakfast was delicious and well received by all of the folks joining us for the fundraiser!

Golf Cart maintenance and upgrades

As with anything that you acquire, maintenance comes along with it -- as well as the desire to upgrade the new item with additional features. We're finding this with the golf cart. I had posted about us putting new mirrors on it (https://journeyinamazinggrace.blogspot.com/2024/12/improvement-to-golf-cart.html).

Carl checking air pressures in the tires -- they were down a few pounds. He had not checked them since we got it, so we figure they were low when we purchased the golf cart.

We had wanted to get a back seat and safety bar to install over the area where golf club bags would be stored (in its "normal" use on a golf course).

Carl had ordered it and had it sent to our friends, Mory and Peggy's house. We had picked it up a few days before, and finally found a day that we thought we could work on it.

Carl pulled the golf cart up onto the patio so it was near his tools...

... we followed the directions -- one of the early instructions was to remove the top of the golf cart, which Carl is doing here.

I didn't get pictures during the process as we were both working on it... it went pretty well except there was a point where suddenly the instructions showed a picture with a new component installed, with no instructions on how to install it and, which was worse, none of the bolts which we needed to attach it. In addition, the directions told us to remove bolts and keep them for re-installation, and one of the bolts that we were to remove and then reuse was missing. So a trip to the hardware store to get missing bolts was required (actually two trips, as we had not figured out that we were missing the second set until we'd already made the trip to get the first set).

At any rate, the back seat and safety bar are now installed -- here it is in the "utility" configuration (we used this to take the trash and recycling after the installation was completed).

And here it is with the additional passenger configuration -- we are looking forward to using it when we have company visiting!

Carl has a long list of "to-do's" and it is always great when a big one gets completed!

Carl playing with his new drone

Carl became very interested in a new drone like one of our friends (Mory) had on our Alaska caravan trip. Recently, he ordered and received a DJI FLIP. He is particularly interested in getting overhead pictures from our campsites. He was trying it out on our lot in Mesa a few weeks ago -- these are some of the pictures from it...

Initially, he tried just taking off from the table on our patio and taking a picture across the street...

... then he turned the unit around and took a picture of himself!

A wider view of our lot

Now, we aren't allowed to fly a drone in our community, so he just flew it up over our lot, and for a very short time. He is hoping to take it out with our friend, Mory, to try using it in a location where it is allowed to be flown.

A couple of colorful sky pictures

We often have very colorful skies in Arizona -- here are a couple of pictures I've taken over the past few weeks:

Sunrise from our front door

Sunset over the "center" (the main building in the middle of Venture Out) one Friday evening as we were walking to the Friday night dance

It isn't colorful every day, but we enjoy pretty sun views frequently -- more sunsets than sunrises, just because we are more often awake then!

Dinner with some of our Alaska caravan folks

We had dinner a couple of weeks ago with the tail gunners, Jeff and Julie, from our Fantasy Alaska caravan, along with others of our travelers from the Mesa area...

Carl, Patti, Julie, Jeff, Mory, Peggy and Peggy.

Carl had Chicken Parmesan

I had Pollo alla Pizzaiola (Chicken breast with fresh tomato, oregano, capers and olives)

Good food and great visit!