ArizonaLife.Rocks - Pam & Jeff Miller - Blog

3 + 3 = 3 Years for 1 & 3 months for another …

6/30/2019

Last week was 3 years since we arrived back in Arizona after our 2+ year vacation in Hawaii. Last week was also 3 months since we moved in to our new home that we bought in Cottonwood. Sometimes both these events seem like they just happened, and other times they seem like ages, or even lifetimes ago.

The buying of our first home this Spring was quite a big event for us. Being totally unexpected, and a totally new experience, the 7 week ride was quite the adventure. We are now happily settled, and both of us are enjoying making the house OUR home. The big adjustment is that there is no rental property management web portal for me to submit a maintenance request, have someone show up, fix it, and someone else pay the bill.

On June 6th we celebrated our 20-year wedding anniversary with a return trip to Hawaii spending 6 nights on Maui, and 5 nights on Kauai, the same islands we visited for our wedding and honeymoon in 1999. While on Maui, we had a nice visit with Judge Loo, who married us in 1999, renewed our vows with us for our 10th anniversary in 2009, and visited with us for our 15th in 2014. A separate blog post was made earlier in June about Judge Loo. It is right below this blog post.

We have had 6 trips to Maui prior to this one, but had only been to Kauai the one time for our honeymoon in 1999. The return visit was very relaxing, except for one big adventurous day. After breakfast, we started off with a 70-minute aerial tour of the whole island. There are so many areas not accessible by car, the only way to see if from the air or sea. After the aerial tour and lunch, we tool a sunset catamaran sail up the famous Na Pali Coast. It was pretty cool to see up close from the sea many sights we had flown over that morning. Click here for a slideshow photo album of the day’s adventures.

Back home I am still working at Pink Jeep Adventures. I enjoy my M-F desk job, and do not miss being outside in the elements, and amongst all the tourists. Our new ownership is better than ever, and I only see good things happening for the company. Our newest location recently opened in the Smoky Mountains, and tourist season is in full swing at all 4 of our locations in Arizona, Nevada, and Tennessee.

Pam is still volunteering at the JCSVV (Jewish Community of Sedona and Verde Valley) Temple Office, and has been made Assistant Manager of the Gift Shop. She has a fancy name badge and all the benefits that come with it, too. She is continuing to study Mussar with friends. We are both still involved at the JCSVV attending almost every Friday night for services, and other celebrations and events.

Wishing you all a safe start to summer, along with good health, good times, and lots of happiness, too. Peace. Love. Light. ~ Jeff

Day 1, and our 10th, 15th, and 20th with Judge Loo

6/8/2019

On June 6th, 1999 we were lucky to meet this wonderful woman, Judge Rhonda Loo. She was actually a late fill in for the Judge we had arranged to marry us who was ill. We had a beautiful beachside marriage in Lahaina.

In 2009, while on our 10th anniversary trip, we met her at her court in Wailuku, and renewed our vows with her. She told us how happy she was having performed our wedding and renewal because she normally does not do so, and all she deals with is bad crap all day, and this was something good. We became friends. We have stayed in touch.

When we lived in Kona, we flew over to Maui for the day on our 15th anniversary and visited with Judge Rhonda.

Yesterday, I put on the wedding shirt again, and Pam in her 10 year and 15 year celebration dress, and we spent time together at her court office again. She is a beautiful person inside and out, and we are lucky to have shared 4 wonderful and meaningful days of our lives with Judge Rhonda. Below are the 3 of us through the 20 years, and I am trying to figure out how Judge Rhonda has not aged a day. ~ Jeff

Our 20th Anniversary in 2019

Visiting in 2014 for our 15th anniversary, and renewing our vows on our 10th anniversary in 2009 below.

Where it all began on June 6th, 1999 at the Pikake in Lahaina

Catching Up ... May 2019

5/12/2019

Wow. It's May. How did that happen? We were just celebrating the holidays in December, and Pam's birthday in January. Then our lives and world went on quite the roller coaster ride from January until now.

New Year's Eve day started with an unexpected blizzard in Sedona. By mid-morning there was already a half a foot on the snow on the ground, and the 2 main highways in town were closed. Traffic and town were at a complete standstill and shutdown, and if you were out, you were literally trapped for hours. When the roads finally opened up at 3:30 in the afternoon, I made the quick dash out the door from work. It was time to make the 9 mile drive home. My quick dash to the car in the parking lot was all that was quick, as the normal 20 minute drive home, took 3 and a half hours. What an experience that was.

January was a somewhat quiet month, and a highlight was a quick overnight trip to Monument Valley for Pam's birthday weekend. We had been there once before in May of 2010. This visit was incredible. The beautiful weather accompanied by the remnants of recent snow on the ground. We stayed at the Historic Goulding’s Lodge, and had an early morning guided tour with a local Navajo Native. The views were breathtaking, and the tour was great.

February included a continuation of Pam's birthday, with a couple nights in Las Vegas. We had a lovely visit and dinner with my former boss at Pink Jeep, Ed and his wife Bonnie. We got a chance to visit the Pink Jeep tour operations based at our LV location. We also got to see Pam's cousins, Steve & Roxanne, and visited their booth Roxanne's Treasures at the Charleston Antique Mall. No visit to Vegas is complete without a Buffet, and we tried the Wynn (disappointing and overpriced), we stopped and watched the fountains at Bellagio, and ended the visit with seeing the Cirque du Soleil Michael Jackson ONE Show. It was fantastic.

February also brought us Sedona Snowmageddon on the 21st. Two days of continual snowing left us with about 2 feet of the white stuff on the ground. It was light fluffy stuff, and was really beautiful. Since town folks, governments, and businesses were all prepared, it all went very well, unless you needed a snow shovel to try to get out of your driveway. We were only stuck at home for 3 days.

Now for the big dips in the roller coast ride ... February started off fine, and then the 2nd week of the month, we got a phone call from the Property Management Company that the owners of our rental house decided they were selling the house, and we needed to move by the end of March. For those of you not familiar with the Sedona rental market, well there is none unless you are extremely wealthy. It took about 1 day to realize there were not any livable homes available to rent for less than a couple thousand bucks a month. We quickly decided that if we were going to be over-extended and broke paying rent, what about being broke and buying a house. Sounded like a great idea.

Long story short, neither Pam nor I had ever owned a home. This whole process was new, exciting, overwhelming, stressful, exhausting, and full of learning all sorts of stuff that we never knew about. We looked at over a dozen homes, made offers on 4 homes, pre-qualifying loans, home inspections, more inspections by specialists, paperwork, emails, more paperwork, more emails, more paperwork, more emails, and a short 7 weeks later, escrow closed and we were homeowners. We got escrow to close in just over 3 weeks. We moved what I could by myself on Friday & Saturday with a U-Haul trailer, and in Sunday the 30th, a local moving company moved the big stuff like furniture and appliances. Yep, I talked the moving company in to working on Sunday, and we were out by the 30th.

The first week of April we were in our new home, and the first weekend we also had a trip to Phoenix planned from months ago. Last Fall I had bought tickets for 2 shows and gave them to Pam for her birthday in January. Saturday night was the show Wicked in Tempe, and on Sunday, the traveling Cirque du Soleil show called Amaluna in Glendale. Two more fantastic events. It was also nice to get away from the whole house hunting - house buying - moving tornado that had consumed our lives the past 7 or so weeks.

Our lives slowly returned to normal in April as we unpacked and organized our new home. It is a special home in many ways. Not only because it is the first home for both of us, but we bought it from the couple who had bought the land 30 years, and the place was a custom built home. The workmanship is great. They even gave us a photo album of every step of construction, a hand-written journal with all the events from buying the land and the $10 building permit, the receipts for everything spent, and the owner’s manuals of paperwork for everything inside and out. It is like having the history of the land and home all in one nice file box.

If you want to see a photo collection of us all unpacked, and organized, you can view the photos here ... The Millers House

Whew ... what a busy 5 months. Pam and I are looking forward to the continuing journey of making our new home, OUR home. We are also looking forward to celebrating our 20th Anniversary in June, and a return trip to Maui and Kauai where we were married and honeymooned.

As we slide through Spring, and towards Summer, I hope all of you are well, safe, happy, healthy, and wish you all the best always. ~ Jeff

Winding Down for 2018

12/10/2018

It has been an eventful couple months leading in to December and the holiday season. At the beginning of October, Pam and I took a long weekend trip and flew to Minnesota to see our friends, Lory and Gary. They were neighbors and co-workers when we lived in Cambria, CA. They have relocated and just finished building their new house on a lake in north east Minnesota. We flew in to MSP, spent the night in town, made a visit to the Mall of America, and then hit the road for the drive up to Spicer.

We got the grand tour of the area, had some good meals, and most importantly, had time to sit and relax, and enjoy seeing each other. It had been about 5 years since we had seen Lory & Gary when they visited us in Sedona while on a road trip in 2013.

After such an exhausting short vacation in Minnesota, Pam needed a bit more bed rest after coming down with bilateral pneumonia. After spending 2 weeks at home, and various treatments from Dr. G, she opted for the more upscale services of a local B & B in Cottonwood, known as the Telemetry Unit of the Verde Valley Medical Center. What a scare, and thanks to the great medical center staff that got her on the road to recovery.

November started with the final preparations for Pam’s adult group b’not- mitzvah. After nearly 2 years of studying Hebrew, including 8 months of preparation, four ladies became bat-mitzvahs during the special Friday night services and ceremony at the Jewish Community of Sedona & the Verde Valley. A large crowd gathered for the beautiful service led by Rabbi Alicia, Pam and her classmates. It was an emotional evening for the participants, as well as the members of the congregation and guests that were in attendance. I am so proud of Pam and what she accomplished.

Thanksgiving crept up on us being the week after Pam's bat-mitvah, and we planned a quiet weekend at home with just the two of us, and lots and lots of food. All went just as planned and I ate turkey and all the traditional extras for 6 days. It was yummy! Each and every meal of every day.

Hanukkah was early on the secular calendar this year, and we started the first of the eight nights with a small celebration at Temple, complete with lighting the menorah, singing songs, spinning dreidels, and eating latkes, and salad. At home we got in to the spirit with some decorations and lit our menorahs for each of the remaining nights.

December 6th is always a special day for us. It is the date I consider to be when Pam and I became an official couple. She had invited me over to celebrate Hanukkah on that date back in 1996. We have been together ever since, so this December 6th marked 22 years of couplehood, and 19 and a half years of marriage. We are looking forward to celebrating our big 20th next year with a trip to Maui and Kauai.

This past weekend we had another special time, a visit from more friends from California that came to Sedona. Bobbie, Patti, and Debbie were co-workers when we were all tour guides at Heart Castle. We had not seen them since we left the Central Coast and moved to Sedona in 2012. We celebrated with dinner on Saturday night, followed by a beautiful Pink Jeep Broken Arrow Tour on Sunday morning. Our poor tour guide Brien had to put up with 5 retired tour guides in his jeep. There was a whole lot of talking going on. We followed that up with some window shopping and retail therapy in Uptown Sedona.

So as we head in to the final stretch of 2018, Season’s Greetings to all. I hope those that celebrate it had a Happy Hanukkah, and for other observances, wish you all a Merry Christmas, a Wonderful Winter Solstice, a Happy Kwanzaa, and my apologies for all the others that I am missing. May you all be blessed with good health, happy times, safety, warmth, love, and have a Happy New Year, too.

Rumblings & Ramblings ...

8/25/2018

The monsoon season in Arizona has been in full force complete with the rumbling of thunder, the flashes of lightening, and the crazy floods that seem so intense, and then disappear in 30 minutes. As for the ramblings, let me ramble on about a few random things.

A couple weeks ago we passed 2 years living in our current rental house. This is the 2nd longest we have lived in a place. The longest was 9 years in the same rental house in Cambria. We did not make it to 2 years in our first rental house in Sedona, or the 2 different rental houses during our time in Hawaii.

Late July had me reach my 2-year anniversary of working at Pink Jeep Tours. At the end of July the company was sold to new owners. A much larger family run business based out of Georgia, called Hersched Family Entertainment. This is a good thing and only brings bigger and better opportunities to the Pink Jeep family.

The HFE Corporation owns amusement parks, aquariums, resorts, theaters, and the Harlem Globetrotters, too. Click here to read all about them.

We are getting ready for the Jewish High Holidays in September, and I have been asked to blow the shofar, and then in November we will celebrate Pam’s Bat Mitzvah, along with 3 of her Hebrew classmates during a Friday night service. In between we have a long weekend get-away to Minnesota in October. We are going to visit some friends and co-workers from when we lived in Cambria and worked at Hearst Castle.

Apparently old age is creeping up on me and I am having cataract surgery on both eyes. One eye was done this week, and the other in a few weeks. While my brain is playing ping-pong trying figure out how to focus on things, I am amazed at how clear and how colorful everything is in the eye that had surgery. Who knew the world was so colorful. No more yellowish or grayish tint to everything.

Nothing else real exciting to report except maybe the scorpion that stung me in the garage last weekend. He/she is dead now.

Think I got real lucky and not a full sting. It hurt a little, freaked us out a lot, and I learned that the firefighters/paramedics down the street are real nice, and good looking, too.

I hope summer has treated you, your family, and friends well, and that everyone is safe, healthy, and happy. ~ Jeff

2 More Years of ArizonaLife

6/23/2018

Guess I have been tied up with life, and have forgotten to write a blog post for an entire year. Let’s see if we can change that and get back to regular blog posts.

Monday, June 25th, we will have been back in Sedona for 2 years. In some ways it seems like we just got back, and in some ways it seems like we never left.

Life continues moving on, and things are good. Pam and I are still living in the same rental home in the Village of Oak Creek area. Earlier in June we celebrated our 19th wedding anniversary, and we have already finalized our plans to return to Maui and Kauai in June 2019 for the celebration of our 20th anniversary.

In a few weeks, I will hit my 2 year anniversary working at Pink Jeep Tours. I must say, I do not miss being outside in the elements, and amongst the tourists, and enjoy my Monday – Friday office desk job at the corporate headquarters.

Pam is still busy with her jewelry crafting, cross-stitching, taking Tai Chi/Qigong classes when available, teaching a friend how to cook, and continuing her studying of Hebrew. Along with some of her adult Hebrew classmates, Pam is going to be Bat Mitzvahed this upcoming November. She was also recently elected to be Vice President of the Women’s Havurah, at the JCSVV (Jewish Community of Sedona and Verde Valley).

We have both become more involved at the JCSVV attending most Friday night services, the High Holidays last Fall, Purim, Hanukkah, and other celebrations and events. I have been called upon to carry the Torah, and Pam has been called up on the bimah to light the Sabbath candles and sing the prayer. We both have been called up for aliyahs, too.

This past year we had some enjoyable local road trips and weekend getaways. Some to places we have visited before, like the Grand Canyon, and Petrified Forest, and to some new places, like Tuzigoot National Monument, Tonto Natural Bridge State Park, and the towns of Bisbee, and Tombstone in Southern Arizona.

Last November we took a short trip to Spokane for the annual NAI Workshop (National Association for Interpretation) where I was recognized and honored to receive the association’s Meritorious Service Award. When we returned from Spokane, we had Thanksgiving dinner at our house with relatives and friends. It was a nice change to celebrate the holiday in our house.

Being the sports fan that I am, it was great to watch my hometown Philadelphia Eagles win the Super Bowl, and to have the Arizona Diamondbacks surprisingly make the play-offs last year, and to be off to a good start this season, too. We went to a few games down in the valley last year, but passed on buying tickets for this season. Too much driving, and too expensive.

We survived a very dry winter and spring. If my old memory is correct, only 1 day with any snow, and only a couple days with any rain. We are in severe drought conditions and red flag fire danger warnings, too. Last summer we had only a couple of monsoons. With monsoon season officially starting June 15th, we are all hoping for lots of storms and water for our land and vegetation this summer of 2018. Work even has a day and time of the first monsoon storm pool going. I picked 7/4/18 @ 1:40PM.

Wishing you all a safe start to summer, along with good health, good times, and lots of happiness, too. Hope to be back with more blogging soon.
Peace. Love. Light. ~ Jeff

366 = 1

6/25/2017

June 25th. 366 days = 1 year ago today, we arrived back in Sedona. We had my car, 5 suitcases full of our stuff, and thanks to friend Jon Knight, and his brother Mike Knight, a furnished vacation rental to sleep, and settle in for the next 6+ weeks. A charming VRBO, called Marilyn’s House, their mothers place in West Sedona. A few weeks later, Pam’s car would join us, and 7 weeks later, our cargo shipped from Hawaii finally arrived from its cruise across the Pacific, and truck ride from the port of LA.

When we arrived on June 25th, we had idea if and where I would find a job, where would we eventually find a place to live, and how the move back would work out. It was a hard decision to make, but we had to survive. Spring and the start of Summer 2016 were quite a rough few months. Making the decision to leave Hawaii and return to Arizona was stressful, agonizing, and even painful at times.

I hit the streets running, or at least scouring the Internet help wanted ads and driving around to apply for jobs in my air-conditioned car. A few weeks later, I was hired by Pink Jeep Tours to work in their headquarters support office in West Sedona. Phew. It was a great opportunity with a great company. Start date, July 21st.

Now, June 25th one year later, we are settled in to a nice rental home in the Village of Oak Creek area of Sedona. We have been in the place since the beginning of August 2016. On July 21st, I will hit my 1-year anniversary working at Pink Jeep.

Life has moved forward, and we have survived. As Pam has said, she had a nice 2 and a quarter-year vacation in Hawaii. With purging our belongings before we moved across the ocean, and again before we moved back, we have refurnished our home.

We are settled back in Sedona, we have made a few new friends, and have joined and become involved in the local synagogue, the Jewish Community of Sedona and the Verde Valley. And yes, it is a dry heat.

Hope all of you are well. Hope the Summer season is good for everyone, and hope to post more frequently on our ArizonaLife.rocks website blog.

3 + 2 = 8

9/25/2016

3 months ago, on June 25th, we pulled back in to Sedona. It was my first time back since we moved away in March of 2014. Pam was here for a short visit in 2015. 2 months ago this past week, on July 21st, I started my new job working in the support office at Pink Jeep Tours. I must say, I am the happiest I have been in quite some time, other than the pain and healing time that Pam is having to go through with her recent elbow and arm injury. There is always room for things being better and/or for some improvement, and that is why 3 + 2 = 8, and not a 9 or 10. Jeff

2 + 1 + 2 + 1

8/23/2016

It has been 2 months since we arrived in Sedona on June 25th, and just a bit over 1 month since I started my new job working in the support office for Pink Jeep Tours in Sedona. We have been in our new rental home for 2 weeks now, and our cargo arrived from Hawaii about 1 week ago.

Getting settled back in Sedona has been both happy times, and some stressful times. Finding a new job, and a new place to live were definitely good things, and happy times. Having to replace furniture we sold, and other household items, has at times, been a bit stressful, but is just stuff, and it will all be fine in the long run.

There have also been some bad times. A couple days after moving in to our new place, my wonderful wife, Pam, took a fall and hurt herself. A dislocated elbow, and a fractured arm led to 11+ hours in the emergency room, and a lot of pain, aches, discomfort, and bad times. Now she gets to start the rehab and physical therapy process. I wish I could wave my magic wand, or have some futuristic device to make her all better. Please send her some good vibes, and some healing hugs. She certainly does not deserve what happened, or what she is going through. She sure picked a heck of a way to get out of unpacking boxes and getting the house organized.

Once we do get unpacked and organized, we will share some pictures of our new place, and more of beautiful Sedona. For now, I leave you with this one, the main cover photo here on our website. It is one of my favorite pictures taken on Pam's birthday in 2012 while we were out on a Pink Jeep Tour. Jeff

3 + 3

7/19/2016

We have hit 3 weeks and 3 days back in Sedona. There was another warm week with no real monsoon activity up until this afternoon. I hope the monsoon storms return soon. We had a day trip to Scottsdale to pick up a package and have lunch with Pam’s aunt, and visits to Bed, Bath & Beyond, Trader Joe’s and Costco. Sure missed those first two in Hawaii.

More job applications were completed, and a couple more interviews happened, too. The job I really want had a second in-person interview first thing last Monday morning, and then a follow-up phone call on Thursday with a few more questions. Finally at ten minutes to 5PM on Friday last week, came the phone call with a conditional job offer pending past employment verifications, reference checks, and a drug test. The offer on paper came today, and I went and did the drug test, too. Should get the all clear on Wednesday, and then it will be official. Stay tuned to Facebook for the official announcement.

We also went looking at permanent house rentals yesterday and today. We put in an application on a place in the Village of Oak Creek area of Sedona. Should find out about that on Wednesday, too. If that happens, we have our own place as of August 8th. Woo Hoo! Now we just have to buy a bunch of furniture since we sold all of ours in Hawaii, and wait for the ship with all our household and personal goods to arrive in LA, and then trucked to Arizona. That should happen about the shortly after the house lease starts. In another few weeks, it should all come together. Keep you fingers crossed for us. Jeff