Sorry for my lack of posting my friends, work has been busy! I am officially in week 3/4 for my first training class of new associates. I've had my fair share of up's and down's regarding my first class, but for the most part it's going great! I have a class of 22 students which I co-facilitate with two other colleagues. I'll be ready to just have the first class under my belt and over!
This past weekend, MB stayed with me a few days while they were working on her apartment. She talked me into going to the casino to spend the day since it was supposed to rain anyway. I walked in with $60 and walked out with $173... I'll take it!
After the casino, we decided just to drive around a bit, and found ourselves at the summit of South Mountain, and what a view! The pictures don't even do justice! It had just finished raining, so there were a lot of clouds so we didn't get to see the distances that we could on a clear day, you can even see the rain coming down in the distance in the pictures!
The next day (Sunday) I was enjoying my normal Sunday routine.. surfing the internet.. when I heard what I thought was thunder. It could have been the stupid neighbors upstairs because they constantly sound like they are rearranging the entire place, but then I saw a flash of light and heard the familiar rumble of thunder again! Oh how I love when there is a bit of a thunderstorm here...... or so I thought.
This storm was not the normal rain, a bit of wind, some thunder and some lightening type of storm... oh no.. this one was different.
It began to rain, and as I've become accustomed to, I like to open the door and sit out on the patio as the rain comes down. This time as I opened the door to go outside, out of nowhere came this huge gusting wind and I immediately saw the trees begin to bend and then I heard branches snapping off left and right.... maybe I should just close the door and stay inside. Then I could hear the wind whooshing down the fireplace... that's sure never happened before. Then the power began to flicker on and off, and then it went off for good. Great.... this is really going to cut into my 'True Blood' and 'The Leftovers' HBO time.
Just as quickly as this little storm began it was over, in the span of about five minutes. Storms are a great way to meet ALL your neighbors by the way, as everyone began to come outside and confirm everyone else's power was out as well.
We were all also able to see the damage that had been done too. I was told 'Welcome to Arizona' and 'this is the worst I've ever seen' and several occasions, good to know this isn't the norm. I took a little walk around our complex to survey the damage and this is what I found.... some apartments had their windows blown in, luckily no one's car had anything fall on it, and we don't even know where that big piece of what looks like a roof came from.
... what a mess right? There was debris and branches and limbs all over the place. The great gardeners/grounds crew here works fast though, and they had it all cleaned up by time I got home from work on Monday.
Just look at this before and after! Minus the obvious missing branches from the trees you wouldn't know anything had happened!
I know my Audrey and Oliver fans are surely wondering what is up with those two... well I'm happy to report they are kinda friends now!
They chase each other around, one time they come running through and Oliver is chasing Audrey and the next Audrey is chasing Oliver, it's funny to see them play. They still aren't BFF's yet, but they do at least share the bed now.
I couldn't find them the other day and then I heard some noises coming from the bathroom, I turn on the light and look in the tub and find this! I'm sure they were up to no good right?
.JPG)
