Sorry - weve been having too much fun so need to bring you all up to date.

Firstly - we now have a local contact number after a bit (lot!!) of messing around - not of our making. If family wish to contact us you may do so on
+1 623 203 6571
It is likely that Peter will answer the phone but, depending on the time of the call - don't forget the time difference, the others won't be far away.

Sunday was a relatively relaxed day and I spent the morning going to a church service with Bev and Jim where we were treated to something a bit from the norm whe the service consisted with a singer, Dave Irish, entertained us with spiritual songs. After the service we went to lunch at a nearby Mexican restaurant and then home to watch the Diamond BAcks on Jim's 73" TV (that's not an error it really is thatbig). The home team won 15-4 so we will be taking this up with Craig as to why we went the losing game Saturday night.

Sunday evening we all met up with a number of the members of the Glendale Kachina Club at the Od Spaghetti Factory to share a meal and friendship. Everybody has been so welcoming and supportive and we are lapping it up. It was a good opportunity to mix around and meet a few more of our new friends and share our hopes for he trip.

Monday -the first day of the 'real stuff'. We started out this morning at the 'Arizona Highway' (a magazine on Arizona) offices and were treated to a great presentation from two very committed people, Wyn Holden the publisher and Jeff Kida the photographic editor. Their presentation was informative and relevant to the concerns of encouraging people to come to a 'one attraction State' and stay for the other great areas to visit - very similar to our tourism issues at home. They have certainly set a 'standard'.

After luch with Jim at the The Fying Skillet (Glendale airport - light aircraft) we headed off to the Camelback Ranch - the Spring Traiing complex for the Chicago White Soxs and the LA Dodgers. This is an amazing complex (built at a cost of US$108m last year) where the training of the rookies and the minor league players takes place all year round and the major players come down for one to two months prior to e season. Apparently the fans flock to the area and they will have crowds of 30,000+ to watch their practice games! We were hoste arond the complex by John Patneaude - whom Kirsty will be able to tellou all about (it's ok Jamie it was all very innocent but we weren't going to let Kirsty off lightly! - I'll let her explain).

We managed to survive day one and thoroughly enoyed the experiences including a brief discussion on the advantages of big TVs (you had to be there!).