A Garden

My mind is a garden. My thoughts are the seeds. My harvest will be either flower or weeds. -Mel Weldon







This is an interesting thought to me. I truly believe that you will see whatever it is you are looking for. I remember going to visit Steve's family and pretty much every time I expected to have my feelings hurt and guess what? I did. It came down to how many times they would be hurt vs. if they would or not. That is one area I still have to be aware of. If we are going to be visiting with his family, I work to adjust my mind set. It has worked lately and I'm sure it will get easier the more I practice it.


This year has ended in a way that I really didn't expect at the beginning and I was feeling sorry for myself until I took a moment and really looked at all the great things that blossemed in our lives. Sydnee spent four and a half months in Wales with side trips to England, Scotland, France and Italy. Robin graduated from high school and is now enjoying Western Washington University. Steve has the opportunity to do contract work with his eye on early retirement. I have begun teaching more and looking at what other ways I can help others.


Our family is healthy and our friends are fabulous. Life is a garden of flowers.


Be Free,
Lorri

Timeshares

I need to let you all know the reason I thought he was insane. When we bought our first timeshare, 10 years ago, it took four hours because he just wasn't convinced that it was a good deal. At the time I thought that it would force us to take nice vacations. It has, we have had some amazing trips in the last 10 years, not only with our timeshare. So I think timeshares are great. I just didn't see us buying more right now, so I expected that we would listen like we have in the past and leave. Steve listened much more patiently that I and when we were left alone, I really did blurt out, "Are you insane?" The look on his face was truly priceless. It was a real life reversal of personalities. But he thought it a good deal and so we bought it.

Such a Fine Sight to See

Well, we are back and we survived. It was a fun and beauty filled trip. I’ll start at the beginning.

We flew to Phoenix instead of Flagstaff because the difference paid the cost of the rental car. Sweet. We arrived on time and got the car and headed north to Sedona. It was a beautiful drive. We arrived and checked in and immediately got scheduled for our timeshare appointment. Now I wasn’t sure if it was worth it, but Steve said ok, so we were on for Thursday.

Our room was fabulous. It was a one bedroom with a kitchen and a huge garden tub. I was in heaven.

Sunday morning, at the free breakfast, we were approached by a woman who had the paperwork to get into the Grand Canyon, but didn’t want to go alone. So we drove and she went with us. The Grand Canyon was spectacular. We started at the east side and drove west stopping at almost all of the view points and such. Here are a few pictures.






We walked quite a bit around Sedona and got what I consider some good photos. The next day we drove to the Petrified Forest. Along the way we stopped at Walnut Canyon, which are Indian ruins. Pretty cool stuff. The Petrified Forest was cool too, I don’t know what it is about science, but it makes me want to learn more. We hit the north edge of the forest and saw the Painted Desert. It was really beautiful too. It was a good thing we had unlimited mileage on the rental car, we ended up putting over 1100 miles on it. We stopped in this small town for dinner on our way home. You get extra points if you can sing the song.


Thursday morning and we went to the sales office. We listened to the reasons why we should buy a timeshare with their company and then looked at two different rooms. I don’t think Karen, our saleswoman, believed Steve when he told her the three bedroom suite with a den was about the same size as our house, but it really was. It was really nice too. So we trotted back to the office to look at numbers. At this time I am so bored and thought about texting the kids but I stayed respectful and polite. Karen told us the price and Steve was very polite. We eventually had a moment to ourselves when I blurted out, “Are you insane?” He was actually interested. We bought. It does sound like a great deal and I know we will travel more if we do this. So, we will be travelling.
It rained on our last day there and on the drive back to Phoenix, but all in all it was a great trip.