Snow!

Last week Rock (one of the guitar players in my band) wanted to have a barbecue. The leaves are turning colors and it is just starting to snow in northern Arizona, so Bill and I suggested that we have the barbecue up in Payson. Bill and I headed up on Friday. Rock and his family, Devin (the other guitar player in my band) and his friend Daniel, and Devin’s parents came up on Saturday.

When Bill and I drove up on Friday night, there was no snow on the ground. It was cold and windy and a storm seemed to be blowing in. On Saturday morning we woke up to freshly falling snow. It kept falling for a couple of hours. 

Bill walking up the cabin driveway.

The cabin front yard.

The cabin.

My car covered in snow :)

The backyard of the cabin.

Bill took these awesome pictures of the squirrel and birds on the bird feeder.

The back of the cabin when the clouds parted.

We met Rock, Melinda (Rock’s wife), and their three kids at the Safeway down in Payson and drove back up to the cabin. As soon as we got to the cabin, the kids started playing in the snow. The snow ball war didn’t stop until halfway through Sunday!

The snow ball carnage.

While we were waiting for Devin, Daniel, and Devin’s parents, we headed down to the Tonto Fish Hatchery:

Leaves frozen to the sidewalk.

One of the trees that had turned colors next to the creek.

Some of the fish in a young stage in one of the tanks.

Beautiful view from outside the fish hatchery visitor's center.

The different buildings in the picture are the holding tanks for trout in different stages of growth.

If you look closely, you can see several big trout in this pond. You can buy food to feed these ones and they all swarm around the food in the water. This pond is right next to the creek where they release some of the trout for fishing. They also use the trout they raise here to stock a lot of the lakes in Arizona and the Lee's Ferry area of the Colorado river up by the Grand Canyon.

The creek right by the hatchery with snow.

A picturesque view on the way back to the cabin.

Everyone else arrived right when we got back from the hatchery, and Bill got to grilling steaks:

Daniel and Devin by the grill. 

A tree that had turned colors for fall down the street.
The two below are Bill's. Notice anything interesting in the first picture? Comment below if you see it :)

When the snow started to melt, it fell in giant sheets off the roof onto the front planter area. This then became premium snow ball ammunition :)

After a day out in the cold we had an awesome dinner:

This corn was made using this crazy shucking technique found in this video:

                         

Steak!

Devin's mom made a potato cheese bake. Oh, how I love cheese! She also made an AMAZING Tiramisu, which I unfortunately did not photograph.

After a huge dinner we took a walk and then came back for some jammage. I played the pan flute. Yep. Anybody who took woodwind tech with me in college probably has a good idea of how that went…

I also played the box drum. Literally a drum made out of the space heater box. Drumming is also not my forte either LOL.

Devin and Daniel jamming.

The cabin seemed to be the room without time that night. I’m not sure if it was the overcast, snowy weather, the early winter dark, or just the mountain air, but we all kept thinking it was 11 p.m. when it was really seven. Time passed incredibly slowly. Somehow, though, we still managed to stay up until around one in the morning.

The next morning, we woke up and had elk roast for breakfast (AWESOME!!). After that we headed up to the Mogollon Rim.

Elk roast!

A snowman someone had built up on the rim.

The rim with snow.

The view of the highway below.

Ice crystals on a tree.

One of the semi-frozen ponds by the roadway.

The rim is extremely windy all year round. Devin and Daniel decided to walk with their backs to the rim so they could hide their faces from the freezing cold wind.

One of the strange twisted and stunted Ponderosa Pines on the rim. The trees closest to the edge are shaped by the constant wind.

The same tree in July.

Frozen grass.

White trees against a gray sky.

Part of the path along the rim was frozen.

Some more gnarled trees.

A close up of the ice on a Ponderosa Pine.

 Snow ball fight in the parking lot of the vista point.

 Rock and Daniel

 Rock just threw a snow ball at Devin.

 Devin throwing a snow ball at Daniel.

The rim road.

I was sad to go back home, but happy to be warm. Devin's parents headed back to Phoenix on Saturday night, so Devin and Daniel had to cram in my Honda Fit on the way back. In order to fit everyone and all of their stuff in the car, Daniel and Devin had to sit in the back seat first while we handed them things to cram around their feet, between them, and on their laps. In the picture, they have two guitars laying across them. After loading them in, I sat in the passenger seat and Bill gave me things to cram around my feet. That's the trash on my lap to take down to Payson. Awesome. I think it's time for a roof rack!

It's a Honda "Fit." Har har.

Daniel

Devin

It started with Tea...

On Thursday last week, my mom and I went to tea at the English Rose Tea House in Carefree, AZ. High tea is one of my favorites, especially the scones. My family has a bit of an obsession with tea. My grandma, Kathy (my mom’s mom), loved tea and had a huge collection at her house. My mom has been known to take thermoses and jars full of tea to work on a daily basis. I also love tea. I actually have drawer full of tea bags that I’ve organized into black tea, green tea, white tea, and herbal tea. Stash is my favorite brand.

My tea drawer.

My mom and I had this:

The perfect cup of tea. Jasmine green tea with raw sugar and milk. Mmmmm.

My tea pot.

Our three tiers. Look at the giant scones!

My mom in her "party hat." They have a whole chest of them available to borrow at the tea house.

Me in my hat.

We ran into the queen! (Not really...)

After tea, we went shopping for a little while and then met Bill to go hiking. We headed back out to Usery Park (so pretty!) to get some sunset pictures. My mom and Bill had never been there before.

To continue our British culinary filled day, we ate at the Cornish Pasty for dinner. Pasties started in the tin mining days. See the full story here. They are kind of like a calzone except they are usually filled with a "meat and potatoes" kind of filling.

I had the Carne Adovada, a Mexican flavored pasty filled with a pork and green and red chile stew. My mom had the Rosemary Chicken pasty, and Bill had the Bangers and Mash pasty. They were all amazing!

And the New Painting Begins...

All Hallow's Eve

So, let me preface this by saying that Halloween is my absolute favorite holiday. I love dark, mysterious, and scary art and music, and this is the one time of the year where society agrees with me. My Mom always goes all out for Halloween with all sorts of scary and creative decorations. I was raised to never go half way with Halloween! I also never quite considered it to be Halloween until I was terrified at least once, so I have to continue this tradition by terrifying the neighborhood children. Bill and I started this last year, and Devin came to join in the fun this year. 

In order to create the "scary" Halloween experience, you have to start with the right ambiance. It's not too particularly difficult to make our house visually creepy. There aren't any street lights by our house or any lights in our front yard. In order to even see our front door, you have to walk all the way up onto our porch. We also have a large display window that can be seen from the street. It's perfect for putting up creepy decorations. This Halloween, we put some large candlesticks, skulls and a jar of "dead rats in formaldehyde" (not real ones lol) in our window. We also put a large floor lamp on the porch with an eerie blue light. Instead of leaving the door closed this year, we actually left it standing open and put up a large red tarp, so the kids walked up to the front door and wondered what was around the corner...

As far as sound ambiance, we definitely had that covered. I had my ipod with a scary playlist going in the garage and Bill had more scary songs playing in the living room. I'd say the best part of the night was when even the teenagers were afraid to come within three feet of the door. Mwahahahahahahah!

Some of the songs we had playing that night:

We also played Lost, of course.

Bill checking out his costume in the mirror while Devin waits stoically at the door...

Bill in his costume. Imagine this guy coming around the corner while I'm handing out candy. Several children ran away without candy!

Devin. He waited perfectly still until I had handed out candy and then would turn around and yell. Usually the kids ran away after that. We had one group of middle school boys who poked at him until he turned around and lunged. They came back again about ten minutes later.

Me. I was an escaped mental patient of some sort. LOL.

Awww...Aren't we a cute couple?