Let's keep celebrating those birthdays

Well - we've only been back in Arizona for a couple of weeks and already found a good reason to party with our friends.  Birthdays are a big reason to celebrate life here in our park - Our friend Jakota is celebrating her 'young' 70th year and Cheryl is still celebrating her milestone 60th!!  

Left to right: Jakota, Val, Cheryl, Molly & Karen.  Molly hosted and cooked for our great group of friends who we all celebrated with.

Left to right: Co, Jakota, me, Nancy, Cheryl, Karen, Kitty, Susan & Ann.

Left to Right: Barb, Linda, Marie, Kaye, & Val.

The birthday girls looked over the yummy deserts: a Blueberry-Razberry tart and a Red Velvet Chocolate cake.

Cheryl taking a full breath to try to blow out the candles.

Thanks from the birthday girls for all the funny cards and delish dinner and yummy deserts and a fun reason to have a party!

Our last Adventure on the road back to AZ

Well the Tomato and Blanch & Lucy are in Canyon DeChelly camping to visit the beautiful Ruins and Petroglyphs in the canyon.  (double click to see larger)

We met our friends Co & Flo (RV on left) and Susan & Ann (RV on right) at Canyon DeChelly - as you can see we we arrived at a great time to see beautiful foliage in the Canyon.

This is our site - quiet and in the shade.

Co, & Susan sitting in the back seat of our open air jeep ready to leave on our adventure - at 8am.

This is Ann, Flo & Cheryl in the 2nd jeep - we had 2 jeeps so that we had 3 gals & a driver in each jeep.

So here we go .... off to see the Ruins & Petroglyphs.

As we drove in we saw a tour that was led on horseback.

There were lots of herds of horses that roamed freely in the canyon.

The horses were very comfortable strolling near us.

This beautiful white horse was hanging very close to us and had no problem with us photographing him.

The beautiful Cottonwood trees were ablaze with beautiful color as we drove through the canyon floor.

Our Tour Guide, Eleanor, was very good about stopping at every Ruin so that we could jump out to take photos.

Some Ruins were closer and some were further away from out vantage viewing area - but the detail of the Ruins were incredible.

These Ruins were called 'Antelope' Ruins because of the Petroglyphs below.

These Petroglyphs of Antelope were the reason this area was called 'Anelope Ruins'.

As we looked behind us our 2nd jeep was right behind us.

Here is another Ruin that we saw.

Here is a close up of one of the buildings in the Ruins.

And here are more Petroglyphs that we saw.

There were times when our partner jeep was in front of us.

This is called 'Fortress Rock' a Proud Moment in a Sad Legacy.  Where the Navajo hid out on this 700ft mesa when the Dine people were trying to escape the Long Walk with the American Cavalry.  If you want to read more on it log onto this link - http://navajotimes.com/news/2009/0609/060409fortress.php

On the way back we saw these Carins (little piles of rocks) so Susan & Cheryl added a few of their own.

After the tour along the canyon floor we took our vehicles and drove along the top of the rim of the canyon to look down on the canyon.

This is called 'Spider Rock' a wonderful spire that juts high above the canyon floor.

We viewed 'White House' from above and could have hiked down into the canyon to see it up closer - but most of us were too exhausted to do the hike.

Even from above we could see the ruins very well with a telephoto lens or with the telescopes that they had for viewing.

From above the foliage was very pretty to view.

We had 2 open Jeeps which were great fun and brought us everywhere on the Canyon floor - these made for a fun ride.

Thank You to Eleanor of "Ancient Canyon Tours, Canyon de Chelly" We highly recommend Eleanor for a great tour - reach her at 928/380-1563 - You will be glad you called Eleanor for the best tour ever....

Saying Goodbye to the Grandkids till next time...

These are the last few outings with Tyler and Ethan before we left Colorado and headed to Arizona.

Tyler (like her mom) runs in the kids road races here in the Denver area.  So one weekend we went to watch her and her mom run the final day race of a 25mile Kids Running for Health Race that started at the beginning of the summer.

This is one of Tyler's 2nd grade teachers who also ran the race with his son.

Though Ethan enjoyed watching his sister race - he mostly enjoyed Miss Strawberry dance and play with the kids.

At the end of the race all the kids who completed this final 5k got a medal noting their total 25mile accomplishment - we were very proud of Tyler.

Tyler and her teamates and her teacher pose proud with their medals.

Then we went to watch Tyler and Ethan at their weekly swim lessons which they love.

Tyler's class is so small that often it's like having private lessons.  Here her swim teacher shows her the side stroke.

Tyler and the other student review the 'crawl stroke' here.

And here she is doing the back float across the pool.

Tyler says she wants to be an Olympic Swimmer - just like Missy (Missy Franklin did her Olympic tranning here at this very pool - which is very inspirational to all the kids who swim here. 

Just like Tyler - Ethan loves his swim lessons - they are both little fishes in the pool and have no fear - they even enjoy going underwater.

Ethan has a little bit of an issue with letting go when floating on his back.

But when all is said and done - he still loves his swim lessons.

Our last outing with the kids before we left for Az was to watch Tyler get her ears pierced!!  A right of passage for all little girls. Tyler was very excited as she sat in the chair waiting for the procedure to start.

Everything got really quiet - really fast once the tech started to prep Tyler for the piercing.

Tyler held onto mom's hand tightly while the piercing was going on.

You can barely see the little earrings - little pink peace signs - but Tyler looks very cute (and growing up) with her new earrings.