Happy Valentine's Day!!

Be magnetic.
Be captivating.
Cause a stir.
Cause heads to turn.
Cause all eyes to land on you when
you walk into a room.

Experience the Kiss Me Mint allure. Those white teeth and that fresh breath — you'll be creating a whole new level of admiration. That pepperminty flavor with a burst of berry is just the right mix of cool and sweet to tempt anyone.




The launch of the new Kiss Me Mint toothpaste to coincide with Valentine's Day is quite staggering, but then if the claims in the advert are to be believed there has never been an easier way to secure a mate!!

Don't try this at home!

Went to a pyjama party the other night at my friend's house- the idea was to watch a video and drink wine, so I was quite up for it! The video ended up being very strange...... It was Dr.John Grey (Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus)- and he apparently is from another planet altogether!!
It seems that all you have to do is to pencil in a few noughts on a dollar bill and then pin it on your ceiling. Then, when you wake up, it will be the first thing you see, you will focus on it, and money will start rolling in to your life. If you are moaning how your mail is full of bills, then that is what you will receive, but, amazingly, as soon as you visualise cheques in the mail, you will become a millionaire!! There is only one small catch to this incredibly foolproof scheme- you have to believe without doubt in what you are focussed on......
Hmmmm
I suspect it is easier to visualise envelopes full of cheques when you sell millions of books, and make videos which even Oprah is endorsing this week!!

Ouch!

My friend's 6-yr old son has just had a precancerous lesion removed from his body, and her husband was told that his cancer had been caught early enough to treat.....so, I thought it was time I sent Nigel along to the dermatologist for a full body check. Like all great wives, I want someone else to check out things like this before I go myself!!!
He dutifully went along on Monday for his 'examination'.........turns out it is quite harrowing to strip and get attacked with syringes, scalpels, and liquid nitrogen..!!!
Both ears had something strange on them, and 3 moles were sliced off his back- so he came out limping, groaning, and armed with antibiotic cream and a load of band-aids. Today it turns out he is also allergic to the band-aids, and now has great weals around the wound sites.
Needless to say, he is very grateful for my loving concern!!

(I haven't made my appointment yet.......)

Walking in Sedona.........in the winter!!

The weather was absolutely freezing, but the walk was stunningly beautiful.
Everywhere we went, people had piled up stones on top of each other, and created a surreal environment.

School lunch has changed a lot since tapioca and jam !

At school here they really encourage parents to visit for lunch, send in notes, phone children in class etc- involving parents at all levels. Daniel very often phones me during the day, and I have taken to surprising them each with a Sonic lunch (think very posh McDonalds!) Emily was so stunned last week that I had turned up that she was unable to speak- so I sat and watched her smile for 30minutes whilst all around was chaos!!!

Bad Timing!

I had high hopes for my fitness regime over Christmas as Louise turned up complete with running gear! But, somehow, I got lured into an indulgence which would have made Billy Bunter happy!! And so, now I am supposed to be being abstemious......BUT......Baskin Robbins has just opened their ice cream parlour (next to the supermarket, I ask you- couldn't they have done it a little less conveniently?)
We had to go to try it (obviously!) , and then we had to take my mum there, and then, well Nigel had been away for a week and not tried it yet, so this is a photo of Sunday lunch.........
We are focussing on the obvious nutritional value of the protein in the cream, the nuts, the fruit, and of course the stress relieving aspect of it all....... and the mental agility required to make the choice of flavour must be good for the brain, right?

The Alps at Anthem

Well, the weather here has been very strange of late- lots of miserable rain, and wind, and very low temperatures. And yesterday we had snow and hail!!
The kids thought it most hilarious and ran outside with their mouths open wide, trying to catch some on their tongues. We followed them out to capture the moment, and the whole street was alive with screaming kids!!!
It is a good job my mum is not visiting just for the weather- as I believe it is nicer in England!!

Double- digit Daniel!

Daniel was 10 on Saturday, and is now a certified dude! He has his own MP3 player, and portable Nintendo, and cannot be found without headphones on now! (Except when he is lounging on his 'speaker pillow' which plugs into both items!!)
We had a little celebration at Rawhide with Jonathan and Lizzie on Monday (love the pink guitar.....) and then he had a sleepover planned for Saturday night with friends from school. We had not allowed for the stomach bug in his class- one by one his friends cancelled, leaving one brave soul......and he fell ill at 8pm and had to go home!! So, we all rallied round whooping with glee, singing loudly and pretending there were more of us there!! We all got into our PJs at 8pm and sat under blankets watching a film, and actually had a really good time!
Daniel was amazingly resilient to the whole thing!!

New Year's Eve!

Christmas Lights in Anthem, then champagne and streamers, and a fabulous meal cooked by Brian.....
a great end to the year.

Love actually!

Aaahh......21 years ago today! More lines and wrinkles on the faces, redistribution of hair follicles and adipose tissue, and a greater appreciation of who we both are. I love being married and the rollercoaster ride that it is......
How did we choose to celebrate the day? Doing what we both love....

Paul and Louise flew off to Denver yesterday after 10 days here, and I sent Nigel with them!!!! They have just had 24 inches of snow, so I packed him off with his skis, and I am Loving a little respite from the busyness of the last few weeks.
My, how we have matured!!!

Boxing Day

As if we hadn't eaten enough on Christmas Day!! Nigel and Paul have now perfected the 'baby back rib technique'- though cannot quite see why they are called babies!
We invited all of TOM and houseguests over (29!!), heated up the pool, and drank margaritas and beer in the sun again..........it is quite tough here in the winter!!

Jolly Christmas!

The kids made a fabulous gingerbread house which, if left to me, would have been very different! As all the pieces in the box were smashed, I would have put ice cream on it and eaten it as a mess!! but Paul.......stuck all the bits together with icing, reinforced it with sticks of licquorice, used wattle and daub, and held it all up with marshmallow towers, which (had I not been making bread sauce and mince pies from scratch) could have been very intimidating! It whiled away the whole afternoon on Christmas Eve and kept everyone entertained for hours- and the enjoyment continued as they ate it for dessert today.....



This morning Nigel put two 10 lb turkeys on the rotisserie (under the watchful eye of Jonathan and Lizzie) and delighted me with an empty oven for all the veg and trimmings. As it was 72F (21C) we had our smoked salmon and champagne outside by the pool.........
Gorgeous..!!

A night of fun and frivolity.....

We went out on Saturday night to a fantastic concert organised by Alice Cooper for his charity, the Solid Rock foundation, which is aiming to build a major teen centre including a rock music school.
The whole evening began with prayer, Stehen Stills (Crosby, Stills and Nash) and Don Feldman (Eagles), who are getting together next year, treated us to their debut with an extended set-( which included Hotel California), Jonathan Cain (Journey) played a grand piano with just a choir for backing, Ace Young (American Idol winner), Tommy Shaw and Jack Blades Band, dancers, comedians etc all gave us a gala evening. As each artist came on, others became their backing singers so it was all like a huge family party. We kept pinching ourselves as we couldn't quite believe we were seeing all that phenomenal talent in one room. We had an interval at 10.30pm when they gave out Christmas pudding, Alice Cooper didn't make it on stage until 12.45 am, and the whole evening ended at 1.30 am with every musician miked up, snow falling on stage, and Santa leading the singing of Jingle Bells!!
All for £25!! That's what I call value for money........

The town dump.

The Town Dump is a wonderful bric-a-brac store which sells everything from rusty geckos and buffalo to a 10ft tall plastic blue leg (covered in flowers). And from a life size model of Elvis, to a stuffed bear wearing a muzzle and a tutu. A frog playing a double bass, a bowl of plastic body parts, samurai swords, an oversized cockroach riding a bicycle, and a plethora of totem poles......a great place to take people in need of a laugh!
It turned out that my wonderful Easter cactus is now a Christmas cactus, covered in Poinsettias!

Desert in December!

We went out towards Cave Creek on Saturday for a gentle stroll around the desert. Things always take a lot longer with Paul, as he is always either looking for bugs and animals or taking endless photographs! We managed to time our visit to coincide with a lecture on venomous desert creatures- and got to listen to the Park Ranger describing the tarantula hawk wasp (which Paul had spotted in our garden that very morning). Apparently its sting reaches 999 on a pain scale of 1 to 1000!! Obviously one to avoid annoying....
(Note the T shirts and shorts and glorious December weather!)

Getting ready

We had already decorated the outside of the house before we went to England (after all, Christmas starts here at the end of November!)but this year we got coaxed into getting a real tree as our famous fake one bit the dust last year after 12 years of faithful service!! So we had fun on Tuesday getting the house ready for festivities. The kids all have their own little trees with lights, and they have put them in the playroom along with lots of musical things which have been banned from mummy's earshot!!
Paul and Louise Richards are spending Christmas with us, and the kids are hoping to have a major 20day sleepover. Spirits are already running high, school is out in 2 days, and Daniel's birthday is also looming, so we are bouncing off walls at the moment, and desperately trying to stem the flow of e-numbers!!
This is proving difficult, as school insists on party after party. Emily has already had a Hannukah party and a winter holiday party, and on Monday she gets an ice cream tasting party (they get to do a blind trial of pumpkin, peppermint and eggnog....)
If we are still all alive after the weekend (there are threats which suggest we won't be!) I will post photos of the finished decorations!!

Goodbyes.

We stayed with Keith and Dawn, and said goodbye to them and to their house, as they are in the middle of packing up and moving on. They are going to work for OM and spend the first few months of the year on board the bookship taking Christian literature to the Phillipines and Taiwan. Then, as a family, they are moving on to Carlisle for the next forseeable future....
You can keep up to date with them by clicking on 'the other Mallons'.

Great British weather.

Nigel and I just spent a very short, frantic week in UK (courtesy of the fantastic babysitting grandparents). We were mainly based in Sheffield but did drive up to Anne and Angus in Guisborough, and got dragged up a hill....



The view from the top was great, but the wind was the sort that made your ears hurt!!



We climbed down and had English bacon and black pudding on a bun with a pint of beer- and suddenly the pain disappeared!
We rather enjoyed the grey and drizzly weather, and a bizarre highlight was having a hot bath listening to the wind howling outside and the rain lashing against the window !!