Decc 2nd to 4th - Mesa

Dec 2^nd – Sun – Mesa

Four couples golfed at Desert Sands this morning – us, Ernie & Dianne, Moe & Trish and Brad & Clare.  We wore light jackets at first but it warmed up quickly.  We came back to the park to drop off our clubs and for Brad to quickly walk his dogs.  Then we all went to a Denney’s for breakfast/lunch.

We and Moe & Trish continued on to Arizona Mills shopping center to see a sand sculpture that contains Santa’s chair for the season.   Trish picked a ticket from a tree of sharing and shopped for clothes for a 12 year old boy.  Even though the ticket asked only for clothes, Moe figured the boy should have a toy so he got a remote control vehicle and then paid as much for batteries as for the car!  We walked around the entire huge mall and ended up with a couple of pairs of shorts for Moe and a pair of shoes for Terry.  We had to replenish our energy with ice cream from DQ!

When we got back, I put some garlic in the oven to roast and we had a drink at Moe & Trish’s.  Then they came to our place where I made a pot of cheddar & broccoli soup from a mix and we ate it with the roasted garlic spread on fresh bread that we bought on the way home.

We taught Moe & Trish to play Ponytail Canasta and the ladies ended up winning what started out to be a very lopsided game in the guys favor.

Dec 3^rd – Mon

When we had our mail forwarded last week, we had a surprise from the Mesa police department – a good picture of Terry driving his truck too quickly in a school zone!  So we spent 4 hours today completing an online defensive driving course so the ticket would not result in points on his driver’s license.  The fine was slightly reduced also.  BORING!!!

We went to listen to music in the courtyard and danced a bit.  I had put pork chops & potatoes in the crock pot but had lots of time to join Dennis, Gloria & Chris at Bruce & Ann’s for a drink before dinner.  We met their neighbor Jim and saw his 5^th wheel which is the same model as ours and a couple of years older.

Dec 4^th – Tues

We went to the activity office to get a ticket for Terry to the Christmas parade dinner.  Julie received a ticket for me since I will be in the parade on her golf cart.  The table was full and there were only 2 tickets left so we decided to wait and see if they added more tables.  We went to Julie’s to get fabric to sew elf vests for me, Julie & Judi.  I had used an unwanted T-shirt to make a pattern and got the rest of the details from Julie.

I was using 72” felt and could cut the vests in one piece with just the shoulder seams to sew.  But Julie wanted a “collar” added with points cut into the collar and the bottom of the vests so that took longer than the initial cutting & sewing.  I finished in time to make lunch and Terry was able to get dinner tickets next to our table.

I lost track of time and was a bit late for my 2:30 appointment for a haircut.  Terry had left for the courtyard when I got back so I changed my shirt, gelled my hair and joined him to listen to Curtis sing.  We left just before 5, picked up Bruce, Ann and Jim and headed to the Chinese buffet for dinner with Dennis, Gloria & Chris and Brad & Clare.

Terry had called several times for a dinner reservation but kept getting a busy signal or a message saying no one was available to answer the phone.  The ten of us showed up anyhow and found the restaurant closed with a sign saying they would reopen soon!  Dennis talked to someone on his phone who knew of another buffet back towards the RV park.  We found the place and it turned out to have food that looked almost exactly like the place that was closed.  We all ate too much and couldn’t hang around too long as we wanted to get back for line dance lessons.

We were 12 minutes late and missed most of the first of three new dances.  But we had done a similar dance previously and will pick it up next week.