AOL and the ADS

  Please Don't Click Any Ad-Banners on This Blog.  I do not  endorse them.  They were put there by AOL without my permission.      Dawn

  I have given this ad problem some thought and have decided to stay put for now anyway.   Many of the journals have explained how to get rid of or at least not see the animated ads.  If you haven't seen the directions , here they are direct form Barb's journal, HEY, LET'S TALK.  

  Click Pop-Up Controls, then click on Block animated
media from AOL. Exit the page you're on, then access it again.
The ads should be gone. *** They are there as the page appears, then will be gone. At least they are so far.  

The journal community will never be the same again.  Some wonderful writers have left for another blog community and some have switched to UK AOL, which will probably have this same fate in the future. Did anyone see the article in BusinessWeek's Blogspotting?    Here's the link if you are interested, Angry AOL bloggers now push boycotts  

 I hope that we can all visit back and forth like neighbors moving out of the neighborhood, but still remain friends.   Time will tell.          Dawn

Mary's Birthday Lunch

HAPPY   BIRTHDAY    MARY   

          Today was our friend Mary's birthday.  I won't tell her age, but I will tell you that she is still a spring chicken.  To celebrate this occasion Bob and I, Mary and her hubby Chuck went to Anzio Landing Italian Restaurant.

  This is a award winning restaurant and is a favorite of Mary's and myself.  It is  romantic dining with  white table clothes and has a unique decor of the 40's with an interesting bar made from a Cessna aircraft.  Anzio's is located at Falcon's Field, which is owned and operated by the City of Mesa, and serves as home base to more than 900 aircraft.  We were given a window table with a panoramic view of the mountains and runway 22.   Many diners fly in to eat at Anzio's.  

The food is so good here starting with the wonderful salad with a variety of greens, dried cranberries, olives and mandarin orange slices, served with hot garlic rolls.   Next was Creamy Garlic Pork  tenderloin with cranberries, mandarin oranges, onions & penne pasta in a creamy garlic alfredo sauce........and Fettuccini Alfredo with Chicken Marinated chicken sautéed with red and green peppers, zucchini, & yellow squash, in a garlic alfredo sauce with fettuccini ........   And to celebrate her day, Mary was given a very large piece of double layered fudge cake topped with vanilla ice cream, smothered with raspberry and vanilla sauces and four spoons.   So yummmy.  

 I hope I didn't make you all hungry!!

Six months on the road.

    We often get asked questions about our cost to travel in a motorhome.   

 Well today I tallied up the cost of diesel from Arizona to Massachusetts and back again.  Holy crap!  This does not include gas for our toad car.    

 When we get into a chosen area, we use the car for sightseeing  within an hour's drive or so.  Going East , from Arizona, we took the northern route and returned the southern route. 

The trip took six months and took us about 7,354 miles.  Going to Massachusetts was not such a straight line as our return trip.  From April 21st to Oct. 14th, we spent $1866.21 on diesel for the motorhome.   

 The map above follows our route from Massachusetts to Arizona.

   We belong to several camping clubs that offer up to 70% off a night rate.  The total cost for sites for the six months was $2,425.21, plus yearly membership fees.

Any more questions, just ask.

Have a good weekend.

My Name is Maggie

  My Name  is Maggie

    This is Maggie, a recent member of our family.    We have been looking for her for the past two weeks and finally found her with the Arizona Humane Society at Petco.   We wanted an adult, stay in the house cat.  We found her Saturday and bought her.  The elder gentleman who, we believe is a volunteer??, went to cut off her paper collar and instead cut off one quarter of her ear.  Can you believe that?  No one, other than us found this to be a big deal.  She had been in a second level cage and he put these sharp scissors in there to cut the collar.  Did he think she would not move, holy crap, what a stupid thing to do.  I guess we are lucky he didn't put her eye out.

Even though she was off to a rocky start, she has adjusted well to her new home and roomies (me and Bob).  She is a laid back type of a gal who enjoys company and an occasional belly rub.   Maybe I could learn something from her!

Halloween

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Oh,  I miss the trick or treater's and all that left over candy!  Because we are in a over 55,  gated community, we see no little ghosts or goblins.   I was tempted to buy some candy, but I resisted the urge.   Yah  Dawn.  

 Did you know the custom of Halloween was brought to America in the 1840's by Irish immigrants fleeing their country's potato famine. At that time, the favorite pranks in New England included tipping over outhouses and unhinging fence gates.  I knew my grandpa was a fun loving guy.  

   Have a happy day.

Arizona State Fair

  Corn dogs, candy apples, fennel cakes, and pepper, onion and sausage    Yikes, where do we start?    I almost forgot, they had fried cheesecake on a stick too.. 

   Ok. I don't want you all drooling on the keyboard, so I won't tell you any more about the food.   They had lots of animals there and you could ride a number of them, including elephants and camels.  There were zebras, goats, barn animals, and a rat as big as a small dog.   Isn't that just so gross??  But there he was, a giant rat!  After seeing him, I was ready for a Margarita!  

 When we first got there we took a ride on the skyride to check out the scene from above, and get the layout of the land.  There was the usual agriculture center with all the fruits and veggies, flower building, midway games, pig races, and continuous entertainment on different stages around the park.  

 They had a cow sculptured out of 600 pounds of butter.  That's a lot of butter.  They also had other sculptures made from butter, a wolf and a cowboy.  Pretty cool.  

We walked out feet off, ate more than we should have, rode the carousel and enjoyed the friendship of our friends.  What more could we ask for?  

VIVI Awards

    Hey,   I thought I was happy yesterday, BUT today I'm ecstatic.  Why you ask?  Because I was nominated for a  VIVI 2005 award.  

 Thanks to Barb from  HEY! LET'S TALK , who nominated my journal.   Barb herself was nominated for two categories, MOST EMOTIONAL JOURNAL and MOST INSPIRATIONAL JOURNAL.

  If you have not checked out this impressive list, please take the time to do so.  You won't be disappointed and you have interesting reading as well. 

 You really have to commend the committeee and Patrick for giving  so much of their time for us.  

   VIVI Awards 2005