June 12 of 12

It's good to be back after not being able to post last month. Welcome to my June installment of 12 of 12. Thanks to Chad for this great idea. Check out his website to see what everyone else did today. When I uploaded my pictures, I noticed a food theme. I guess the rest of my day was extremely boring. Enjoy!

11:30 am Mesa, AZ - I was out of town this week so while I was doing admin work and typing cases, I caught up on watching recorded shows. This was the Ballywood dance on So You Think You Can Dance. It's one of my favorite genres.

12:30 pm Mesa, AZ - Part of my lunch. Ham rollups stuffed with chive cream cheese and cucumber. Don't make a face, it's really good. Plus Diet Hansens soda is the best.


3:30 pm Mesa, AZ - The most evil of all chores, laundry. I hate folding clothes with a passion.

6:30 pm Gilbert, AZ - Off to Fry's to get some food for dinner.

7:30 pm Gilbert, AZ - Turned on the D'backs game and was happy to see they were leading already.

7:30 pm Gilbert, AZ - The sun setting behind some palms.

8:00 pm Gilbert, AZ - Part of dinner. New York strips on sale for $3.47 per pound!!

8:00 pm Gilbert, AZ - Another part of dinner. We left the husks on and put them on the grill, the best way to cook corn on the cob.

8:15 pm Gilbert, AZ - Waiting for the chicken grease to burn off of the grill left over from the coke can chicken made last weekend.


8:30 pm Gilbert, AZ - Oops, ran out of fuel just as we put the steaks on the grill. Fortunately the corn was just about done and we broiled the steaks.

8:45 pm Gilbert, AZ - The finished plate. Sweet potato fries is one of my new favorite side dishes.

8:45 pm Gilbert, AZ - I was very excited to hear about Betty Crocker coming out with gluten free mixes (brownie, cookies, and cake) so we had to try it. Right now as I'm posting this, I'm enjoying a brownie for the first time in a long time.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope to see you next month.

April 12 of 12

Happy Easter everyone. As always, the latest installment of my 12 of 12. Thanks to Chad for the great idea. Head over to his website to see what everyone else did. Today, CD and I went to the Phoenix Desert Botanical Gardens in the morning to see the Chihuly exhibit in the daylight. I know I posted picture from the exhibit a few months ago, but they were at night. I took a bunch of color saturation pictures that turned out well so I decided to post some of those along with some of the wildlife we saw in the gardens. All of these pictures were taken in the gardens between 11 am and 1 pm. Enjoy!

CD took this incredible picture thanks to my great Nikon camera.

We saw several Hummingbirds in the parts of the gardens with the wildflowers.

This lizard was doing push ups for us.

A King snake slithering away from us.

A Bull Frog trying to blend in with the pond. We only found him once he croaked for us.

We saw lots of butterflies too.

Color saturation of the Sun.

Color saturation of the Mexican Hat.

Yet another color saturation.

Color saturation of one of the two boats in the gardens.

One of my favorite color saturation pictures.

Another of my favorites.

Thanks for stopping by to check out my day. I hope you had a great Easter. Check back next month to see what I'm up to.

March 12 of 12

Welcome to my March entry of 12 of 12. Check out Chad's website who started the 12 of 12 movement and to see what everyone else did today. I was once again in Las Vegas for the 12th. My day was pretty boring, just a few interviews, so here are some pictures from the most interesting parts of my day.

11:30 am Outside of Las Vegas - Just north of the city is the turn off to get to Mt. Charleston. I've never been there so I decided to take a drive that way during some of my down time. I didn't get all the way there but this is one of the pull offs I stopped at.

11:30 am Outside of Las Vegas - I'm fascinated by the mountains that surround Las Vegas, especially with the contrast between the colors on the mountain and the colors of the desert.

11:30 am Outside of Las Vegas - Mt. Charleston in the distance, and a ski area on the right.

6:30 pm Bellagio Conservatory - I skipped the middle part of my day since all I did was interviews, in which I can't take pictures. After dinner, I went over to the Bellagio to see the Spring exhibit. It was a garden full of tulips, one of my favorite flowers, so I was pretty excited!

6:30 am Bellagio Conservatory - A ball of flowing water in the exhibit.

6:30 pm Bellagio Conservatory - Tulips

6:30 pm Bellagio Conservatory - Tulips

6:30 pm Bellagio Conservatory - Tulips

6:30 pm Bellagio Conservatory - Tulips

6:30 pm Bellagio Conservatory - A snail made out of roses

6:30 pm Bellagio Conservatory - Massive watering cans!

6:30 pm Bellagio Conservatory - A Japanese stone garden, part of the exhibit.

Thanks for sharing my day with me. I hope you were able to see some beautiful things today too! See you agin next month.

February 12 of 12

As usual, the 12th seemed to be here before I knew it. I've been in Hawaii for the past week and a half helping CD get all packed up and ready to move to Arizona. I'm extremely happy he is moving but that also means this will probably be my last 12 of 12 from Hawaii unless we come back to visit. I've been on the Big Island so that's where all these were taken. As always, the credit goes to Chad for the 12 of 12 idea. Head over to his website to see what everyone else was up to today.

8:30 am Hilo, HI : We took a helicopter tour to see some waterfalls and Kilauea Volcano from the air. It was a bit expensive but worth every penny.

9:00 am Pacific Ocean : This is the current spot where the lava flow is hitting the ocean. The different colors in the water is due to the lava heating up the water and turning it to steam.

9:15 am South Rift : The little orange dot in the middle of the picture is lava. The flow has cooled and hardened on the top but underneath the surface is flowing lava which is headed towards the ocean.

9:30 am Hilo Forest : One of the several waterfalls we were able to see from the air. Absolutely gorgeous.

11:30 am Kilauea Volcano : Just down the road from our hotel, you could see the crater with the steam coming out. It amazed me that we stayed overnight for two nights on an active volcano!

12:00 pm Somewhere on the Big Island : After checking into our hotel, we headed out of Hawaii Volcano National Park to a beach. It was really clear and then all of a sudden, we saw this. No, it's not fog or clouds, it's volcanic fumes and gases, and it smelled horrible as we drove through it.

1:00 pm Punaluu Black Sand Beach : One thing we really wanted to see was a black sand beach, so we stopped here. Not really a swimming beach, but still really neat.

1:15 pm Punaluu Black Sand Beach : A green sea turtle sunning himself on the rocks at the beach.

1:45 pm Southern coast : The coast with the black sand beach. I'm going to miss coming here to visit.

5:00 pm Hakuma Point : We drove down to the end of state road 130 and then walked 3/4 of a mile to the viewing spot for the lava flowing into the ocean. This is what we were walking on, hardened lava rock. Kind of rough going but once again, totally worth it.

5:30 pm Hakuma Point : Where the lava meets the ocean. On the left side of the picture, you can see a few water spouts. This is the same thing we saw from the helicopter, but this time from the ground about 1/2 mile away. We couldn't get any closer.

7:00 pm Hakuma Point : Once the sun set, you could see the glowing lava reflecting off the steam coming up from the ocean. Unfortunately, we didn't get too much of a show. No lava was thrown up from the ocean, but it was still amazing to see this sight.

Farewell from the Big Island. Next month I will probably be back in Phoenix taking the same old boring pictures so I hope you enjoyed it.

January 12 of 12

Well, this is going to be a short and sweet 12 of 12 for January cause I put in a 12 hour work day and am exhausted. Thanks to Chad Darnell for heading up the movement. Head over to his website to see what everyone else did today and show your support for Chad. All the pictures today were taken in Las Vegas since I'm here for work this week.

7:30 am - My rental car for the week. It took me a couple times driving the Prius to figure out everything about it, including how to turn the car on. Anyone who was watching me the first time I tried to turn the car on probably was very amused by my inability to figure it out.

10:30 am - I found this very amusing. An ad to help fight your traffic tickets in Las Vegas.. Call 666-6666. I wonder if that is supposed to have a double meaning.


11:00 am - Stopping at the ATM to get some cash.


12 noon - A construction project on the Strip. I think it is interesting because nothing is flat and nothing is square. It has weird angles and I haven't been able to figure out what it is going to be yet.

12:30 pm - Lunch at Sammy's Wood Fired Pizzas. Grilled chicken salad with a homemade balsamic basil dressing. Yummy!

2:15 pm - My appointment at 2:30 wanted to meet me at a Starbucks which ended up being a good thing because I really needed an energy jolt. Unfortunately, the caffeine in my mocha (which is as close to coffee as I'll get) didn't seem to faze me.

3:50 pm - As if the caffeine from my mocha wasn't enough, I decided to stop at Raising Cane's to get a cup of what I consider to be the world's best iced tea.

3:56 pm - When you put the car in reverse, this handy dandy little screen comes up to show you what is directly behind the car.

4:39 pm - Doing pretty well on gas mileage, 48.2 MPG.

5:30 pm - One of the small issues I run into with my job comes when I need to use the bathroom (especially after several bottles of water, a mocha, and a large iced tea). When I'm going to people's homes and businesses all day, it can be difficult to find somewhere. My solution has been Target. They always have clean restrooms and I know where all of them are!

6:00 pm - Sunset, on my way to my final neighborhood of the night.

7:03 pm - I did pretty well today with an average of 49.8 mpg in the Prius. Over 12 hours after leaving my hotel I'm back and ready to crash for the night.

Thanks for visiting. See you next month.