Winter 2025-2026 (5/20/26)

 Winter is typically not a time when we do a ton of exploring. That was even true when we were full time RVers, but its more true now that we have houses.

Highlights of the fall and winter include the following:

Paul’s close friend Kirk turned 70 and had a blow out party at his cabin near Shaver Lake in California.

The weather was perfect. and the live band was awesome.

In October we joined our daughter Jess for a weekend in Palm Springs. We hadn’t seen her in months, and it was a destination we could all easily get to.

The rest of the month was pretty much spent packing up some stuff from the house in Lake Havasu.

We were supposed to close on our new house in Green Valley at the end of October, but it was delayed a week. Not too bad though.  We aren’t selling the Havasu house at this point, so in addition to packing some stuff, there was some shopping going on.

We are lucky enough to have very good friends. Once we closed on the house, Liz and Randy came to Green Valley with us and helped us move stuff into the house and install a bunch of things like light fixtures.

Of course, it wasn’t all work and no play!

Thanksgiving was in Havasu- a pretty quiet one for us, with Liz and Randy and my brother Ray and his wife Dawn.

Most of the winter was spent going back and forth between the two houses, with the holidays being in Havasu.

Christmas was also more quiet than usual with just a few friends. What was different was that Liz and Randy’s daughter and granddaughter flew in for the holiday, which added to the festivities for sure.

January and February brought more back and forth between the two houses, and also some prep for a big party in Havasu.  Paul turned 70 in February, and wanted a birthday bash. So he got one.

Friends came from all over the country- and even though quite a few couldn’t make it, we had a blast!

Along with the invited guests, we had some UNinvited guests. A swarm of bees decided to plop themselves down on our bougainvillea bush for the afternoon. And they did NOT like the band warming up. Might have been the bass.

The fire department was called, but of course they couldn’t do anything about them.  I was getting nervous because all bees in AZ are Africanized and usually aggressive. I was hoping we weren’t going to have to move the entire party inside. It turns out they settled down, much to my relief.

So the party moved forward, with much eating, drinking, and dancing….

Because most people came from such a distance, we actually partied for several days before saying goodbye to most of the guests- but not all of them. We sort of just moved a smaller party down to the new house in Green Valley so we could show the house to our friends Mike and Julie, who had flown in from Florida.

We hadn’t been there very long when I got a devastating phone call from my brother Ray, who has a winter place in Mesa AZ and was at our party.

 

Our younger brother Richie had gone into cardiac arrest and we initially got no more details. Richie lives in Massachusetts and was born with intellectual disabilities, so Ray and I are his guardians.  We both got the first flights out that we could. We went straight to the hospital and met up with our sister.

Unfortunately the news was not good. After determining that there was no brain activity, we made the only decision that felt right. We decided to donate his organs so that others could live longer and healthier lives.

 

That is the only reason I really shared that personal story. I have been amazed at how many people realize of course that organ donation is a thing, but never really thought about it in terms of themselves or other close family members. Although the decision was an easy one, it was not an easy thing to go through. However.....

Thinking about the people he helped, helped all of us cope with our loss. His kidneys went to two different people in their 50s, and his liver went to a woman in her early 20s. His heart was used for researching valve transplantation.

So, anyway, if there is anyone out there who has thought about organ donation but hasn’t done anything about it per se, it would be a great idea to let your immediate family know what your wishes are, and to find out what Their wishes are.

After spending a couple of weeks in Massachusetts, we all returned to Arizona.

The 50th state- Hawaii (9/15/25)

 Hawaii became the 50th state in 1959 (so did Alaska).  I was born in 1959.

Hawaii became MY 50th state in 2025!  I have wanted to go to Hawaii for a long time- long before it was the only state I had never been to, but Paul was not really interested. He used to go there for business on a regular basis and felt like it was too commercialized.

However, this summer we had to be back in Green Valley for a pre-drywall meeting for the new house in early August.

Although it is beginning to take shape, it still has a long way to go…

My job was to take pictures of each of the rooms, from every angle, and meticulously label them so that if we need to know what is behind a wall later on, we can check the pictures.

Once we were done with everything there, we headed up to Havasu. Y’all, there is a reason we don’t spend summers there.

It was too hot to do anything, including taking the boat out…..so after 3 days of going stir crazy in the house, Paul asked me “what’s the temperature in Hawaii right now?”

Within 24 hours we had booked a 12 day stay in Hawaii. The biggest decision was which islands to visit. We didn’t want to spread ourselves too thin, so we only wanted to visit 2 islands- we needed to come back in about 2 weeks so we could head to California for a party. 

I really wanted to see the USS Arizona, so that meant Oahu, and Maui was high on my list so that was our second island. We debated hard about the big island because the volcano was spewing, which would have been really cool to see. In the end, Oahu won- but we headed to Maui first.

Our airbnb at Ka’anapali Beach had a fantastic view- one we never got sick of while we were there.

We could walk to stores and restaurants, and enjoyed many sunset views while we ate dinner and listened to live music.

Although we could snorkel right from the beach, and we did, we also took a commercial snorkel trip by boat.

Of course, no trip to Hawaii would be complete without attending a luau- the one we went to was walkable from our hotel-

 

it probably wasn’t the best one out there, but we had fun.

I also got to check another national park off my list. Haleakala National Park was my 53rd national park visited (there are 63, but some we know we will never get to see).

Haleakala is an active shield volcano that covers about 75% of the island of Maui. One of the top things to do is to drive to the top to watch sunrise.

We were lucky enough to score permits to make the drive up there.  This involved driving a Very windy road completely in the dark. It was slow going, for sure.

Before we left we grabbed the blankets off the bed and some towels- because we brought exactly zero warm clothes with us. With the wind whipping at the top, we were still cold but it was worth it!

Exploring the island involved a day trip on the Road to Hana. There is an app to download that shows you exactly what to look for along this scenic route.

The drive is not for the faint of heart since it is a long, narrow, windy road.

For our final snorkel adventure before moving on to Oahu, we did a commercial trip to Hanauma Bay. Parking is a nightmare here apparently, so we chose to let someone else worry about the driving. The snorkeling was awesome. {edited to add, brain fart, Hanauma Bay is on Oahu}

I loved Maui, but as soon as we got to Oahu, I knew what Paul meant. There is a lot of “city” in Oahu- including, of course, Waikiki Beach- which is where I wanted to stay.

 Might as well stay at all the iconic spots!  The view from our place was not nearly as good as on Maui, but we were only one block back from the beach.  Unfortunately that block is mostly high rises filled with high end shopping.

I did think the “parking” for surfboards was really neat to see.

We did some short hikes the day we drove around the island to explore, mostly looking at the views…

The USS Arizona has a timed entry system, which wasn’t a problem at all because there are so many other things to see there. We made a day of it. To get to the Arizona requires a short boat trip and once you dock, you have 10 minutes to see the memorial. It doesn’t seem like it would be long enough but it actually is.

This is just a memorial, with a listing of all the names of those lost. The museums detailing the war, and Pearl Harbor specifically, are on the mainland of the island.  There was a lot of great information, and it was actually a great segue for us after our visits to the Roosevelt and Eisenhauer presidential libraries this summer.

Hiking wise, we also made the trip up Diamond Head- a volcanic tuff cone just outside Waikiki.  The 450 ft of elevation gain allowed us to get some great views of the surrounding area.

Since I almost always have fresh pineapple in the house, I was interested in touring the Dole Plantation.

There is a kind of hokey train ride that takes you through the pineapple fields, with a canned spiel about the plantation.

The best part was our snack at the end of the tour…

The time passed by fast and soon we were on our way back to Lake Havasu.