The coyotes were hunting us by the light of the full moon….

 …..not at our mountain cabin in Pine, but at Nuestra Casa in Leisure World!  At our home in the middle of Mesa Arizona, a major city of over half a million people—in the old folks community of Leisure World.

Here is the setting….we left home on our bicycles before 4:30 a.m.....as we usually do (if not earlier). 

The full moon was shining brightly, lighting up the streets, paths, and golf courses.  We were flying around on this brilliant, exhilarating night at 16 miles per hour, and having a blast!

We cycled by the home where dear Mom and Dad had lived for 20 years.  

The moon lit up their home—this home holds so many good memories.

We both sang to the heavens, “We love you, Mom and Dad!”  And I added, “I love your Danny.  I will always love him.  I promise that I’ll be good to him.”  We do this every morning when we’re cycling.  And we’re both SURE that they hear our messages.

I was setting a complex, squiggly course to give us the best view of the glorious moon….weaving in and out of roads and paths, zooming by ponds with fountains lit up in all their glory.

The moon became partially hidden by clouds.

Suddenly, I heard Danny, who was following me, yelling, “Coyote! Behind you, on your left!”  We braked on the path between Fairway 9 and 10.

And there it was….bold as brass, pacing within a few feet of us, not scared at all, but aggressively maintaining eye contact with us.

To our surprise, when we took off cycling again, the coyote started chasing me again.  It only veered slightly away when I yelled at it.  

It must have realized then that I wasn’t a strange animal, but a “strange acting” human.

We continued our ride basking in the beauty of the earth in the light of the shining moon. 

Unbelievably, we spotted two more coyotes out hunting on the fairways.  Luckily, not hunting us, this time!

Dawn was breaking…. 

…..and then we saw several more coyotes heading to the safety of their dens, and hiking places.

All day long the coyotes will be invisible to humans.  Everyone will feel that they live and play in a controlled senior living community, where wildlife exists outside the walls of Leisure World, far away in the desert.

But we know that the coyotes, foxes, skunks, and families of raccoons are hiding during the day.  They are watching the silly humans hit a little white ball with metal sticks and ride around in circles on their go-carts (what most other people call golf carts).

And we know that when the sun sets and the moon rises, all these smart critters will come out of their hiding places and hunt and play with us.

We love the nighttime world….we feel an affinity with these animals that come out at night.  They are our friends, and we love them and the world that they live in!

Thanksgiving Day….a blessed family day

 What a wonderful day filled with love, laughter, food, song, and dance.  And more love!

This Thanksgiving was special in so many ways.  One was that it was the first time that I had not made Thanksgiving dinner.  And the first time that we had spent Thanksgiving at one of our children’s home.

Candice baked the most delicious turkey in her turkey sized clay pot.  I’m going to ask Santa for a clay pot…we’ve never tasted a better turkey.  It was probably also due to the special spices she used.

Marina prepared a most unusual and tasty baked vegetable dish.  See all the vegetables she used.  She even sliced up a daikon.  Don’t feel bad of you don’t know what a daikon is….neither did we.  It’s a long white winter radish.

Stella spend the day completing her cheese cake and making a mixed fruit pie (raspberry, blueberry, and blackberry).  She let me help her with the pie crust.  We didn’t have a rolling pin, so Grandpa had the brilliant idea to use a long bottle.  We had the perfect bottle….a wine bottle filled with water.  It actually worked better than my expensive rolling pin.

Ready for the oven.

Wow!!!  45 minutes later.  Marina’s creation was beautiful!  And it tasted as good as it looked.

The day that we arrived, Grandpa showed Marina and Stella a video of us dancing.  They loved it.  We asked if they wanted us to teach them how to dance, and they jumped at the opportunity. 

We immediately realized that they both were natural dancers.  

So we hatched a plan…we wouldn’t tell Candice that the girls were learning how to dance the swing.  We would practice our dancing every time Candice was out of the house for the next three days.  Luckily, Candice is still doing her run streak, so we knew we would have ample opportunity to polish up our dancing.  

One of the problems is that I had to unlearn how to be a follow—and learn how to be a lead.  In other words, I had to learn how to do all the steps backwards, and how to lead Marina and Stella in each dance move.  My Danny said that I did great, but he does love me.

The final part of our plan was that Grandpa and I would tell Candice, Marina, and Stella that we wanted to do a special Thanksgiving Day performance.  The three of them would sit down to watch.  Then at a preplanned time, Marina and Stella would get up, cut in, and ask if we would dance with them.

So here we are with our Thanksgiving surprise for Candice.  This was a gift we wanted to give to her—her girls dancing for their mother!

Here is our Youtube Video of the four of us dancing. 

We had such fun.  Here are The Four Dancekateers!

Back to preparing Thanksgiving dinner.  Candice worked on the mashed potatoes and gravy while Stella made the filling for the berry pie.

Then Marina and Stella designed the fish for the top of the pie crust.  They had heard of a herring pumpkin pie, and thought it sounded horrible.  But they saw pictures of the herring pumpkin pie, and it had a fish on the top of the pie.  

They both did like the idea of decorating their pie with a fish, so our Thanksgiving triple berry pie was destined to have a fish!

Here’s their pie—all ready to go in the oven.  It’s amazingly creative!

The pies were absolutely perfect…..almost too pretty to eat.  

By this time the house looked and smelled just like Thanksgiving should!

We are very traditional….I asked Grandpa to carve our daughter’s beautiful turkey.  He did a fine job, as always!

I made broccoli casserole.  But as you can see, with all the expert cooks in the home, Grandpa and I could have showed up empty handed, and we still would have had a ton of leftovers.

A beautiful Thanksgiving dinner, with three of our beautiful girls!

We finally decided to cut into the pies that Stella, with Marina’s help, worked on for two days.  And we were glad that we did…delicious.  They were so good that Grandpa had two servings of each!

But Thanksgiving Day was not over….Marina is in her school choir and sings with the Boulder Opera.  She sang an Italian song that she had recently learned in her private lessons.  

We had never heard her sing a solo, before, and were so moved that she brought us to tears.  Luckily, Marina willingly sang her song for us again.  We would never get tired of hearing her sing…more beautiful than a nightingale!

We won’t be together for Christmas, so Grandpa and I decided to bring the Christmas gifts that I had made for Candice and the girls.

As you can see, the gifts were a hit!

This Thanksgiving will be one that we will always remember….as I said, it was filled with laughter, food, song, and dance.  And so much love!

Thank you, dear daughter, Candice, and sweet granddaughters, Marina and Stella.  You gave us a memory that we will always hold in our hearts.

We have so much to be thankful for!

We spent Thanksgiving week at Candice, Marina, and Stella’s home on the edge of the Saguaro National Park in Vail, Arizona.  It was endless days filled with fun, laughter, delicious food, and of course, love.

Our hike—which really turned out to be just a fun walk around the acreage surrounding their beautiful home.

Candice cooking her famous chicken curry…it’s a real treat.  Of course, everything she cooks is delicious!

We brought all my jewelry making supplies.  The girls been making jewelry with me since they started walking.  It is something we always look forward to.  They are very creative and artistic.

Grandpa always admires their creations.  This is one of his “jobs”, and both he and the girls get great joy from this.

We celebrated Marina, Stella, and Candice’s birthdays.  I made a cake and we had special presents for each of them.

For Marina’s 18th birthday, we made her books filled with photos of all the adventures and time that she has spent with us through the years when she was a child….books of Marina with Grandma and Grandpa.

Stella is soon to be sweet sixteen, so we gave her family heirlooms snd jewelry that had belonged to her great grandmother Burt, great grandmother Johnson, and to me, her grandma Vicky.  This is a family tradition that I started 29 years ago when Rachelle turned sixteen.

We gave Candice the perfect gifts for someone who loves the outdoors and Arizona as much as we do—Arizona Trail socks, an AZT scarf (that depicts the multitude of snakes and insects found in the Arizona deserts), and an Arizona Highways book of award winning photos that have been taken throughout the last 50+ years.

For a final adventure before Thanksgiving, we cycled on the 55+ mile Tucson Loop with Candice.  Every city should have bike trail like this loop….it is a real treasure right in the middle of a major city!

We had all of this fun in just the three days BEFORE Thanksgiving!  

I forgot to mention, we are staying in the guesthouse, which is surrounded by the Saguaro National Park with views of  Rincon Peak and Mica Mountain.  The “little” guesthouse is bigger than both our home in Leisure World and our cabin in Pine.  What’s more, Candice has extended an open invitation to us to stay here whenever we want to. A very generous offer.  She had better watch out—we just might move into this vacation paradise permanently!

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and we can hardly wait.  Stella made a cheesecake, she and Marina are making a berry pie, Marina has a fancy baked vegetable dish that she’s preparing, and Candice has a huge turkey in the refrigerator with all the trimmings. 

Let’s see…what are we bringing?  A family tradition, my mother’s broccoli casserole and, of course, ourselves, Grandma and Grandpa.  Grandpa was going to make his "famous" green bean casserole (which has three ingredients and takes about 30 seconds to make), but decided that it would be kind of pitiful next to what everyone else was making.  :)    

This morning, CNN had a Thanksgiving Day quiz....which we did terrible at.  But one answer we both knew:

So you can see, Grandpa is being kind and giving up his traditional 1950’s Thanksgiving Green Bean Casserole, and letting all the rest of us cook his Thanksgiving dinner.  He WILL watch us, tell us all how good it all looks and smells, and do the taste tests.  How sweet of you, Grandpa!

What’s more….on Thanksgiving, Marina is going to give us all a singing recital.  And we have a surprise performance planned.  As I said—we can hardy wait!