Barlow's Big Adventure: One year on ... and what a year it has been!

So this week marked the one year anniversary of our momentous move to Arizona ... 12 whole months! Can you believe it?!!

Luckily we all still love living in the valley of the sun (phew) and even though we miss family and friends back home, the wonders of modern technology means that we can still catch up thanks to apps like FaceTime and Skype and of course keep up to date on everybody's news and events via social media (as you all know I am a BIG fan of social media! 😊)

This milestone also means that we have now completed one whole round of local & national holidays and experienced each of the four seasons (which really just translate as getting hot, hot, hotter & hottest). I have to say my favourite definitely has to be Spring. I know seasons can vary from year to year no matter where you live, and I think this year has definitely been above average for Phoenix, but it has been really beautiful. Temperatures have mainly been in the 70s & 80s, sunshine almost every day (we have had no rain since January!) and the desert is just alive with colour.

Palo verde trees (Arizona's state tree) are everywhere and are a mass of frothy yellow blossom

Brightly coloured blooms in pink, yellow and orange are bursting from prickly cacti of all shapes and sizes

the bright orange flowers of the bird of paradise bush (a hummingbird favorite).

Mr B managed to snap this hummingbird last weekend at the Botanical Gardens ...

purple orchid trees (this one is from our friend John's garden)

and bougainvillea plants heavy with the prettiest of papery fine blooms

We became members of the Desert Botanical Gardens last year (many of the photos above were taken on our visit last weekend) and whilst we are not gardening nuts by any means, it is a lovely place to visit regularly to see the ever changing flowers and foliage and sit in a shady spot for a while and watch the birds and butterflies. Well worth the annual membership fee and we will definitely be going several times more over the coming weeks before the searing heat arrives in another month or so.

Whilst there is no doubt that summer temperatures here are fierce (think we were above 100 degrees every day from the end of June to late August last year!), they are also accompanied by some of the most amazing weather phenomenon that I have ever seen! Torrential monsoon rains and spectacular electrical storms with dazzling lightening and ferocious thunder ...

and hot winds that whip up dust storms and 'haboobs' *snort*

We have witnessed some stunning sunsets, more colorful than any I think I have ever seen

We have experienced some wonderful bird & wildlife sightings ... quail, cardinals, woodpeckers, hummingbirds, eagles, road runners ...

coyotes, deer, javalina and even had a visit to our pool from a bobcat!

Thankfully I have only seen one scorpion (which was making its way into a store at a local Outlet mall ... probably stocking up on ...) and one snake, which slithered across the road in front of the car one morning *shudders*

We have met some wonderful people and made many new friends. Mr B and I even learned how to do the Arizona Two Step, Rumba, Cha Cha, Swing and Salsa!

We have gone on road trips to Tucson, San Diego (twice!) & Las Vegas; witnessed a gunfight at the OK Corral in Tombstone; driven through a forest of Joshua Trees and through real desert sand dunes in Yuma; we accompanied Mr B on one of his work trips to New York and finished the year with a few days on the Florida Gulf coast in Sarasota & Naples. Phew! We definitely managed to pack a lot of adventures into our first 12 months!

Thanks Arizona for an amazing year. I can't wait to see what adventures we get up to next ...
Bring it!