Happy Holidays 2015 from Charlotte
and Smoot
A review of our year in photos
On Jan 2, we started the year by attending another Arizona Theater Company play at the Herberger with Gary and Linda. I thought the photo above was funny because while we waited all three were looking at their phones, like teenagers! And I, of course, had my camera. We also continued having lunch after services at UUCP with The Group – Gary, Linda, Joan, Eric, Kristina and us. On Jan 10 we celebrated Lucienne’s 90th birthday with a party at Pueblo Norte. Her cousin, Darryl, on the left in the photo above, came from Calgary, Canada and her long-time friend, Barbara, on the right, came from Abilene, Texas to help her celebrate. Maria and I helped organize the event.
On Jan 14, after winning the event at the congregation’s auction the previous Dec, fellow UUCP member and lobbyist for the League of Cities, Dale Wiebusch, gave us a tour of the AZ state capitol and hosted us at a lunch with the minority leader of the House, Rep Eric Meyer in his office. On Jan 24 we had lunch with Ralph and Anne Mitchell, Smoot’s only living uncle and aunt, in the home they were house-sitting for her son in Mesa.
On Jan 31, we participated in the UUCP choir’s spring retreat. On Feb 1, Kristina came by to see my collections and was amazed, as expected!
On Feb 13 I had surgery for a torn meniscus in my knee. The procedure left two little holes in my leg and weeks ahead of physical therapy. On Feb 15, we celebrated Elizabeth’s 18th birthday. I’d made a silly card for her, as is my custom. On Feb 27, Connie invited us to see the high school play she and Dennis were playing in, The Addams Family, which was surprisingly good.
The next day, Feb 28, we went to the UUCP picnic at the Railroad Park. (Since we live in Scottsdale and can get the resident rate, we’re the ones who reserve the ramada for the event.) In Feb and Mar we attended the weekly talks given by Marcia McFee on worship design. We’d heard her speak at UUMN the previous year and had been very impressed with her ideas. When she came to the Valley, we helped pay for a congregational membership to her workshop. Carolyn and Heidi volunteered to participate in an exercise. On Mar 12, Smoot presided over his first HoA meeting as president. We hadn’t expected a big crowd so we held the gathering at our house. More people cane than expected so since then we’ve moved the meetings to the Scottsdale Senior Center.
On Mar 22, we joined Lucienne at the Spring Fling at her nursing home. On Mar 31, Alfred and Kathy were in town. We had lunch and they got to meet my current foster kittens.
Alfred took a panorama of my studio while Kathy wielded my lightsaber!
On Apr 5, we had Easter dinner with Linda & Gary and Joan & Eric.
On Apr 16, we attended the memorial to Enid Jones that Linda, Ellie M and I had organized at the Beatitudes. The crowd was much bigger than we’d expected. We took up a good bit of the center’s dining room.
On Apr 21, Laura and her friend came to visit and meet the kittens. We sang in the UU Pacific Southwest District choir at the District Assembly meeting at Valley UU on Apr 25. At the meeting, Smoot was sworn in as the PSWD board treasurer.
Linda’s retirement party at UUCP was on Apr 26. She received a lot of gifts and compliments. We presented her with a painting, a gift by and from Lucienne. I had organized a scrapbook for Linda on her time with us. She got a chance to look at it at lunch. On Apr 27, before they drove back to Utah, we had supper with Ralph and Anne.
On May 8, we went to the Talking Stick resort to see our favorite band, The Moody Blues, play. It was so funny seeing all the gray haired folks in the audience, even one on a walker. We are definitely the older generation now but we still can rock & roll! We took a selfie; it was much colder than we’d expected in the outdoor arena, unusual for May. The performers were disappointed too; they’d expected warmer temps in the desert.
On May 22, I brought cookies to the physical therapists who had been working with me, Jason Webber and Kat at Foothills Sports Medicine. I had my last appointment the next week but Kat was going to be gone. That night we went to the End of Choir party at Duke and Susan’s. As usual, Smoot and Brad got together to chat.
On May 27, we celebrated Elizabeth’s graduation from high school. That weekend, Paula, Smoot and I went to Phoenix Comicon. She and I dressed up but Smoot didn’t.
We celebrated Karin’s Master’s graduation on June 6. We gave her the 2015 poster for folks at her party to sign. We celebrated Smoot’s Medicare, aka 65th birthday on June 20 with minions in attendance! For a while I’d been noticing bees around my outdoor turtle pond. I didn’t worry about it until some started chasing me. We love bees but sadly decided to call in someone to remove the hive on Jun 30. He turned out to have a PhD in entomology but could earn more doing bee removal than teaching in college.
We had our now traditional milkshakes with Julie and Marshal on July 4th.
Benjie joined us for lunch when Gary and Linda came back for a visit on July 5. On July 24, we had lunch with Connie and Richard. You can see the guys in the mirror behind us.
Linda and Gary invited us to join them at their timeshare in Sedona on July 30. We celebrated our anniversary early with ice cream. The next day we went to V Bar B historic site and saw a wall of petroglyphs.
We went to the Talking Stick resort on Aug 4 for our 42nd anniversary. They made us a special dessert. The Leungs gave me an early birthday celebration on Aug 20.
They know my love of Star Wars. On my actual birthday, on Aug 26, I ate my way through freebies then got more Star Wars for my 65th. And a Fitbit!
Bill and Joan hosted a Welcome Back to Choir party on Sept 18. You can see the shiner under my left eye that I got when I fell tripping on a curb earlier that week. On Sept 27, we celebrated Susan’s and Katherine’s birthdays, again with silly cards. On Sept 28, we had supper with Darryl Raymaker, Lucienne’s Canadian cousin, her only relative during one of his fun visits.
On Fri Oct 2, we were able to pick up our 25 foot RV from Cruise America early. That gave us all day Sat to pack before we started our RV/Smoot Family Reunion vacation on Sun Oct 4. We spent the first night at Best Friends in Kanab, Utah then drove into Provo on Mon. We had supper with family including Anne and Ralph Mitchell, Richard and Loretta Nixon, Maline and Marion Hansen, and Reed and Joyce Nixon. The reunion started on Tues. There was a representative cousin from each of the four lines in Smoot’s family – Marti from May Louise, Smoot from Forrest Richard, Claudia from Ralph and David from Dean. David’s wife Deb was there too and his niece, Madeline, Steve’s daughter. It was an amazing turnout of the family.
On Wed, Oct 7, we joined Richard and Loretta Nixon at the unveiling of a statue of AO Smoot at the Provo Public Library, originally the home of BYU. After the reunion activities, we started on the National Parks part of our trip. Our first stop was Capitol Reef Park. Smoot had brought his telescope and in red light shared it with other camp visitors on Oct 9 at the star-viewing event. He later said that was the favorite part of the parks trip for him. We took a selfie at Natural Bridge in Bryce Canyon.
We hiked the Emerald Pools Trail at Zion National Park on Oct 12. The next day we drove to Kanab to tour the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary. The facilities, staff, volunteers and lunch room were all very impressive! But the next time we go we’ll drive a car. The sanctuary is spread out over such a large area with small roads, driving the RV there was difficult. On the drive back to AZ, I learned why one should not move around while the RV is in motion.
Smoot had to attend a board meeting at Camp DeBenneville Pines in CA later in Oct so missed the gathering at Linda and Gary’s place in Mesa on Oct 24. On Oct 28, Carolyn and I dressed up for Halloween at choir practice. On Nov 11, I hosted a toddler shower for Emily’s newly adopted son, William.
On Nov 22, I joined other UUCP Nominating Committee members to advertise our committee at the Coffee Hour Showcase. Smoot grew his beard back on our vacation so he and Sam are the bearded bros. We went to the UUCP potluck for Thanksgiving dinner on Nov 26.
Jency came to visit us the next day after returning from Chris’ wedding in Hawaii. We had a second T’day dinner. We mainly lazed around but Sat night we went to Glendale Glitters.
And Sun she went to church with us then we
went to visit Lucienne who had forgotten Smoot had grown a beard
and didn’t recognize him. She thought he was Gary Lawrence or
Jency’s husband! On Dec 4, we went to the District 23 Democratic
Party holiday potluck.
We went to McCormick Ranch's Holiday Magic event on Dec 5. They had snow for the kids to sled on. Smoot got to talk to the folks hired to do the landscape masterplan for the Ranch in response to push-back from the City of Scottsdale on water use. On Fri, Dec 11, the night after a contentious HoA meeting, we went to Jane Benson’s neighborhood Christmas party in our holiday finery.
On Sat, Dec 12, we went caroling with other UUCP folks. The next day we went to Lucienne’s holiday party and got our picture taken with Santa.
On
Dec 15, I went to the holiday party at the school where Susan
has been teaching. We both brought goodies for the kids.
On Dec 18, we went to see Star Wars The Force Awakens. I wore my
Jedi outfit! It was the opening weekend not only for the movie
but for the new Harkins Camelview theater at Fashion Square
Mall. The theater has reserved, stadium seating and very comfy
lounge chairs with foot rests. We saw Curtiss Manker-Seale
afterward in the huge lobby.
It's our tradition to take pictures of our cats on Christmas, not that Jack, Rocky or Gheer enjoy wearing the collars!
Our Pets and Fosters in 2015
We still had foster Tessa at the beginning of 2015. Here she is checking out the turtles with our Rocky. We got another foster named Star in Feb. We got black and white Teddy and tabby Squeaks, below, also in Feb.
We had two cats roaming the neighborhood that Lee and I started feeding. Lee tamed the cat eventually named Karol to the point that she could go to Paw Placement and be adopted. We started the year with six baby Red-eared slider turtles in the bathtub and six adults in the outdoor pond.
After Bonsai died and another adult seemed to be having problems, I brought the smaller adult back inside making seven turtles in the bathtub! In March we got Chloe. Rocky tried to play with her under the door.
At the end of March we got a mama kitty eventually named Karis and her four kittens I named Cheddar, Muffin, Marble and Speckles. It was fun watching them grow up.
In April 2015 we got Sugar Bear for a couple of weeks while she was on medication. In May we cat-sat LucyLu while the Quinns were on vacation. In June we fostered sweet, white Bijan.
Ash Charcoal Smoke
On June 1 we got three identical black kittens. I couldn't tell them apart so had to put fingernail polish on their ear tips to distinguish them. They were all eventually adopted but sadly Charcoal developed severe, probably genetic medical problems and had to be put to sleep.
On June 27, Megan told me about a cat that had been rescued from some kids who were dragging her around by a rope around her neck. I offered to foster Buttercup who turned out to be very sweet in spite of the cruelty she endured. Our own black Bagheera, aka Gheer, and orange and white Rocky put up surprisingly well with all the foster kitties coming through our house.
They know where they stand in the hierarchy. I’m just their feeder and pillow! In Aug, I got black and white siblings, female Bubbles and male Squeak. Sadly Bubbles started showing signs of severe illness, possibly feline leukemia in her bones even though it didn't show up in her blood test. In tears, I had to have her put to sleep. My favorite picture of her was when she was watching the birds outside her window.
In Aug, Paw Placement agreed to take on Tiggie, a 20 year old cat that had belonged to a colleague of a UUCP member. I had Tiggie until an adopter took her but sadly the adoption didn’t work and I took her back and still have her. In Sept I got goofball Zorro. He’d been rescued from the streets. I had him less than a week but he was so cute and sweet and silly, it was hard to let him go. After Zorro I got big, shy boy Tank. His mother was moving in with one of her children and couldn’t keep him. He liked the barrel too!
Our big boy Jack had been hiding under the
bed during the day and only coming out to be fed in the kitchen
at night. We decided we had to make him more social so closed
off the bedroom and got him used to staying on ‘his’ chair in
the living room. He was pushing 20 pounds when we got him but
now he’s under 17, a good start. In Nov we got a foster named
Jack who needed to recover from a leg injury. He was a real
cutie but very different in color and size from our Jack.
On Dec 4, at Megan’s recommendation, I
took a picture of Tiggie with a plea for a new forever home to
be put on Facebook. It turned out to be a cute picture but sadly
no one has come forward to adopt her. On Dec 11, I took over
caring for four kittens who needed fostering for ringworm. Their original
fosters were going out of town. At eight weeks old they’re full
of energy except when they’re asleep! And speaking of sleep, I
seem to be a favorite place for our cats to sleep. Tiggie woke
up when Smoot got the camera but she had been asleep on me too.
I guess I'll have to resign myself to being a pillow!
We still have our Cockatiel, Cici and a tank full of Mollies.
And occasionally we’ll get some
Peach-faced Lovebirds at our seed block. They add some living
color to our yard.
The indoor turtles have a Christmas tree and fireplace to decorate their tub.