BACK IN ARIZONA

We arrived at Steph and Rob's home in Queen Creek Wednesday morning after a short, uneventful trip down from Payson, Arizona. The "Valley of the Sun", however, had a very eventful Tuesday evening. My daughter, Kelly, said that they had heavy rain and golf ball and tennis ball size hail,with wind gusts up to 70 miles per hour in some areas in West Phoenix the previous evening. Queen Creek was not hit with as much hail, but they had enough rain to flood Steph and Rob's back yard and most of the yards in their neighborhood. the hail was so bad in West Phoenix that some of the car dealerships are running ads for new vehicles damaged by the hail - half price, in some instances. Who would have ever expected it in this area.
Rob is coming along slow but sure after his back surgery, however he is a little frustrated because he cannot do more. He is restricted to sitting for only 15 minutes at a time and standing and walking as much as he can. Otherwise he is restricted to laying in bed. He is not able to drive or ride in a car for 6 weeks. Because of that, they have asked us to park here during that time, so that we can transport Connor and Aiden back and forth to school, etc. It was wonderful to see everyone. The boys have grown inches while we were gone. I went to Aiden's softball lesson with Connor and Steph Wednesday evening, while Robert and Rob held down the fort at home. Queen Creek has a wonderful program to introduce 4 year old boys and girls to various sports. Connor attended last year and Aiden was eligible this year. It is so much fun to watch them learning stretching exercises and the basics of throwing the ball, catching, etc from the coaches.
Thursday morning we dropped the boys off at the babysitters - they have been on fall break this week. This was a test to make sure we could find our way there and back! Then, I spent the morning catching up on laundry. I had a whopping six loads to be exact. We were also trying to get a few things organized in the 5th wheel after our trip. We washed the windows and put up our sun screens. We put off power washing the 5th wheel to a later day.
I managed to get in a 5 mile walk in the afternoon - I haven't had time to walk all summer and boy am I out of shape! I'll have to take advantage of the "cooler" (80's) Arizona weather this week, since it is suppose to be back up into the 90's next week. We watched the kiddos in the later part of the afternoon - what I'd give to have just a small portion of their energy. Aiden and I tossed some hoops until a few of their friends came over and relieved me. They shot hoops non stop for about two hours, rode their bikes around for awhile and generally made us tired just watching. They should have slept good last night.
Steph is training for a triathlon - biking, swimming and running - I give her credit. There is no way I could ever do it. Some how she manages to get it all in between work, home, etc.