Christmas in Phoenix

Well, first of all the drive to Phoenix went well. There was no snow to make it difficult for me as I have driven in the snow but don't like it. I stayed with my son Steven and wife Eileen the first night. Had a bite there to eat.

The next day I was supposed to stay with Michael. He had been cleaning for a few days to prepare for me to stay with him on Christmas Eve..When I arrived I met his new girlfriend Suzi who loves him very much. She was apprehensive in meeting me and afraid I wouldn't like her. We immediately became friends. She was everything I thought. With all that has happened in her life she has met the challenges well. She is shorter in stature than myself but has beautiful eyes and skin and carries herself with confidence and pride. She is a lovely lady and I hope Michael will listen to her advice. She has a lot of wisdom.

Christmas Eve was spent making homemade Cinnamon Rolls. I got the recipe on myrecipe.com and it called for 2 packages of yeast and chilling the dough for four hours..that was different from the ones I made before. Michael has a new stove but it just didn't get hot enough so I waited 30 minutes instead of 12 to cook them. Michael stayed busy cleaning while I cooked.

Christmas morning we had brunch with an egg bake from Lesli, a Spanish Egg from me, several varieties of breads and the cinnamon rolls, fruit, juice and coffee. My sons Steven, wife Eileen, Matt and wife Lesli, Michael and girlfriend Suzi, Daniel who drove in the night before and Suzi's friend who decorated and myself were all together for the first time in years.





Since there was no tree, we put the presents on the table that we had finished eating from and all sat around to open them. The greatest gift I had was to have all my sons in the same room together. The reason it took so long is another story. Anyway, I didn't feel any heaviness in the air only laughter.



One morning I went with my daughter-in-law Eileen and her mom Pat to Boyce Thompson Arboretum. I saw hundreds of varieties of cactur from all over the world like South America, Africa, Australia, Central America and Mexico. There are over 3200 species of desert plants there. We walked for a mile and a half. It is located close to Florence, Arizona.






I spent the night with Eileen and Steve since all that walking made me go to bed early. The bed that my son Michael had for me was an inflatable and the cats had made a small hole in it so I had to stay with the other sons for the rest of the week.

Steve and Eileen were having a football party one night and Steve wanted me to make "Tylerwiches" which is made with good ground beef and sourdough bread. He wanted to have 20 made but we had to make the patties smaller since there wasn't enough meat.He had done all the prep work for me, shredding the lettuce and the swiss cheese. That was great. Everyone there seemed to like them so I guess my mom's recipe was a hit once again.

I visited my friend Nena and her family who had been hit with some kind of flu virus and out of about 10 people only three didn't get it. My friend said she didn't have Christmas until Wednesday because of it. Nena is my college friend and she was weak from the sickness. She has two grandchildren now.

I returned on Saturday and found the dogs and cats were doing fine and Daniel was still working. The Wednesday after New Years, Daniel went to work as usual. The staff had a meeting and despite the hard work that Daniel put in, they said they had to lay him off because they couldn't afford to pay him. Wow, Happy New Year..Daniel has been depressed since then and isn't looking for work yet.

If anyone reads this and knows how to pray, pray that he find work soon. I was glad that went down for Christmas and next year I may have everyone come up to my house and we will be walking over each other.