Monday, January 6th

Same old pattern today, chilly start warming to a beautiful day.
  After breakfast, George & I went over to Smitty's where he went over his technique in dealing with the diamond willows.  George has been interested in how to go about turning the sticks into canes to be proud of.  It was an interesting bit of info that highlighted the hours and difficulty of getting a quality result.
  When we got back we loaded up and went for a drive to Tempe.  It was a day of firsts for our guests.  First time to the Tempe outlets where we stopped at a Total Wine, a store they had never even heard of.  I know when we tell people about it having 3,000 kinds of wine and 1,500 kinds of beer they have difficulty believing us, but they were amazed.  Something else we have seen before was they went in not needing anything, but curious to take a look.  After seeing the selection and prices, they came out with their own buggy with quite a few things.  George was surprised to see Molson Canadian for $12 a dozen, Moosehead at $11 a dozen and many other brands he had not seen for ages.  Marg also had some mango mix for margarita's something she has been looking all over the place for.  She also picked up a few other things.  Then the gals went in to the Nordstrom's rack store, but no success there.
  It was a short drive from there over to Scottsdale, another place they had never been.  Driving up Scottsdale road they were surprised at the number of car lots featuring expensive import cars.  We went in to old town where we had lunch at the grapevine on the second floor deck, another first.  A bit of a drive around there and a few photos and we took the Indian School Road out east to the 101.  First time on the loops and they were again surprised to see how easy they are to travel off-peak.  They will be leaving to the west tomorrow and were having doubts about taking the 202 but now are convinced it's their best route.The intersection of the 101 & 202 can be tricky but was good today, helping to boost their confidence.
  Back at our place we had a beer.  George had picked up a dozen Hawaiian beer so that was what we had.  They were OK, but I wouldn't buy them.  LOL  Bonnie & I did some work on our jobs as Audit committee for the condo assoc. back home.  I had to print some forms off from the Dropbox site the association uses.  One of them was our proxy for the annual general meeting.  We are having George exercise it for us.  Another first preparing the report and a recommendation on financial management as this was the end of Bonnie's first year on the committee.
  Off to the China buffet on Power road, another first for them.  The food was very good tonight and the variety is always amazing.  I got the impression they have never been in a Chinese restaurant / buffet this large and quite enjoyed it.  They treated us to dinner, which was very nice.  Up to this point we had been successful with the 2 and 2 approach [Dutch] at meals.
  When we got back to our place we posted a few pictures and such.  It turns out our guests have friends in Spirit River that used to live in the low rentals in Delton.  They were 2 doors down from us and although we did not recall them, they picked right up on our names when they saw a FB post.  It certainly is a small world in many ways.
  Had a glitch with either Blogger or the internet here, so this never got posted, just sat as a draft last night.  The computer just kind of froze and I never discovered it until Tuesday evening.