Terry's Latest Project

Terry loves his retirement and keeps busy by working in his shop, formerly known as the garage. Many of his projects are pieces of furniture that I think we need at the cabin and he indulges me by making them. Last fall while "window shopping on line" he found a guy who had just cut down a huge alligator juniper tree in the Forest Lakes area, about 2 hours north of where we live in Tempe. Terry called him on the phone and within a couple of days we drove up there to take a look at the pieces of lumber. I had previously looked at a lot of furniture and taken pictures of things I wanted him to copy, but when I looked at that beautiful raw wood everything I originally thought I wanted went out the window.

We selected several pieces and I told Terry that I thought I would like to keep the tables with the free form edge of the tree and even leave the bark on it for a rugged look. The wood grain, the knots, everything that came naturally with this wood was beautiful. Terry agreed.

Terry cut, sanded, clamped, glued, drilled, welded, stained, varnished, and invested a huge amount of time and energy. Here is the result of his hard work. I think it blends in perfectly in our cabin setting.

Arizona Spring

Springtime in Arizona is wonderful. While much of the country is recovering from rain and mud, or snow melting into a muddy slush, we enjoy green grass, flowers and the sweet smell of citrus blossoms. Honestly, to walk out into my backyard on an early April evening and be greeted by the aroma from our orange, grapefruit, lime, and lemon trees is truly heaven. And it never gets old and it never ceases to amaze me.

This winter we received as much rain as we normally receive all year. As a result, the cactus are in a rare abundance of blooms. I walked down to a neighbors house to snap this shot. Unfortunately they positioned their cactus in front of a cable box so I didn't put in a picture of the whole cactus but did you know they could have such beautiful flowers.

While I was out I snapped a picture of my Iris. They grow without any help from me, which is good because in spite of my last name, I am a lousy gardener.

Every spring, for several years now, a couple of mallards (male and female) have flown in and spent a week in our pool on their way north. This year however the male left and for some reason we would see the female every now and then. We never put it together until the day after Easter when she along with her nine little ducklings were found swimming in our pool. Her nest was tucked in under the shrubs in the picture. The mom could hop in and out of the pool just fine, but the ducklings were too small. So Terry made two ramps for them to walk up, complete with floats to keep the ramps in the water just right, and wood stops on the outside to keep the ramps from slipping away from the side of the pool. Currently only 2 ducklings have survived. We think that maybe the chlorine in the pool is not that healthy for them. We have been feeding them cheerios. They now swim right up to us to get their treat. Terry says when they fly off they will never be able to survive on their own so he is going to strap a box of cheerios on the the back of the mother with instructions for the next humans they come in contact with.

I honestly do not know how we missed the eggs and the nest. We had 10 children running all over our yard hiding and finding Easter eggs.

Here are some of the kids concentrating on making the most beautiful egg. The girls belong to Christian's girlfriend Liz.

We also celebrated Oliver's 2nd birthday and Trevor's 12th birthday. Olie really likes his cake!

Easter Dresses

As a child I loved Easter for two reasons. Dyeing the eggs and the picnic and hunt that always followed and a new dress to wear for Sunday. Dad would always try to find a new park or lovely wooded area for us to go to for the picnic and Easter egg hunt. Mom would always make a new spring dress for me. There would usually be lace, or ribbon or rick rack on the dress and more often than not...lots of ruffles. I am sure it became a greater challenge as more and more girls were added to the family. I don't know when she started making the dresses for Easter, but if it were me, by the time there were 5 girls in the family I'd have to start sewing the day after I got Christmas decorations put away. One year she decided to make us all matching dresses. I believe they were lavender gingham. This was fine with me, I was the oldest. But in the Thurston family except for the occasional new dress, you wore hand me down clothes. I am sure my youngest sister Cheryl was really tired of that dress by the time she outgrew all five of them.

My first 3 children were boys and although I did sew for them, the T-shirts and shorts didn't cut it for me. I longed to make a frilly dress. Then I had Afton and enjoyed a few delightful years of little girl dress making.

With 8 grandsons and no granddaughters I have had a bit of a dry spell. Every Easter I look at the cute little girls in their frilly dresses as they prance into church and sigh. This year I decided to do something fun. Christian has been dating a girl who has two daughters, ages 4 and 7. I decided to make them sundresses and Afton brought over her sewing machine to help sew and make the process faster. After making the dresses, I decided to make their Barbie dolls matching dresses.