The Dixon's won the Christmas decorating contest for their house display!

Our park had a contest you could enter for decorating your house for Christmas. Of course last year we won the ATV decorating contest at our other park so I told Doug we had to enter again. Of course, all Doug could say was "bah humbug!" Of course he does what I ask so he proceeded to decorate the house under my supervision. He kept telling me I was getting  "tacky" but I just ignored him, in fact I told him I would name the display "The Dixon's Tacky Christmas"

After all the rain we had a week ago, when our road out front was running like a major river, Doug decided to get out his fishing rod he bought at a garage sale and lean it up against the saguaro decoration like he was fishing. I had him hang an elf's hat from the end and all the neighbors had a good laugh. Then our friends from Wisconsin were visiting and she saw the little cotton tail rabbits running about the park and she teased Doug that how come he hadn't caught one of the rabbits yet. So the next day when Doug was at the  Harbor Frieght store, I went into the Goodwill store right next to it and found a rabbit stuffed toy. We brought it home and hung it on the end of the line. Now we really had people laughing! The next picture says it all

 

 The judging was done December 20th. People were invited to come to the club house and break into groups to go caroling in the park while the Apache Junction fireman came to the park to judge the houses.

 This was the house all lit up the night of the contest. One of the stars went out right as we were leaving for the club house and Doug couldn't get it going again for the life of him!

 Only about 20 people turned out to carol so we broke up into 2 groups, one to go to the south side of the park and one to the north. This was our group going to the south side.

 They even decorate their golf carts here

 Here we are caroling. We went to the real elderly people in the park that are either shut-ins or have difficulty getting out. They were so appreciative of us singing for them and some even had tears running down their faces! (maybe our singing was that bad!)

 I was amazed at how many elderly people there are in our park and our group only caroled in half the park. Many were in wheel chairs and using oxygen.

 We had so much fun, we then went back to the club house for hot apple cider and goodies. We met lots of very nice people

 This was the firemen going around the park judging the houses

Doug and I at the club house after we got our first prize! ($50) We are going to buy a toy for a needy child with the money

Railroad Display

Saturday evening December 17, our friends from Malakwa BC invited us to  their house in Mesa for dinner and to go and see a railroad display this family has in their backyard . The family is wealthy, own two Mexican restaurants and the father has a passion for big model trains. He has converted his huge back yard into a permanent railway exhibition. They open their yard to the public for 2 weekends only in December and you can go in and view his magnificent display of running trains. It is free but they do encourage you to donate money to the Arizona Children's hospital. We spent at least 2 hours there and of course you can imagine Doug had a great time!

 This was outside the peoples' place as we waited to be let in. There was a cholla cactus with a bird's nest in it

 Grace and I going for a walk in the neighbourhood while we waited for the yard to open

 You enter through one of his large garages where he stores all his spare train cars and parts. It in itself was something to see. You can just imagine what this must have cost him over the years!

 There were shelves and shelves of spare train cars

 He had every kind of car you can imagine: Amtrack, coal train, steam trains, coal cars and on and on

 We are now out in the yard and when you first go out, you don't know where to look first it is so impressive

 It was so realistic that Doug just couldn't believe it. He had 5 Mexican fellows helping him to keep it all running.

 We had to stop here as Doug reminisced about a few particular train derailments he helped pickup

 A coal train going by - of course Doug has a particular bent for them!

 The train derailed a few cars right by us. The little kids just can't keep their hands away so the fellows were kept busy re-railing cars all evening

 They had a roaring fire going in their outdoor fireplace and even though it wasn't that cold, Grace and I warmed up for a bit

 Doug had to get a picture of a Canadian Pacific coal car on this train

 There were arched bridges, trellises, tunnels, you name it!

 He even had a large pond with fish in it and bridges for the trains to go over the pond. Doug took some great video clips but I can't seem to get them to run in my blog so wasn't able to insert them

There was even a functioning round house

Lots of tunnels, the kids loved it when the train disappeared into a tunnel and they tried to figure where it was going to come out again

This was the front window of the train owner's house. It was a gorgeous Santa Fe style home

After we left the train display, Grace and Malcolm wanted to take us to Main street in Mesa where the Mormon Temple is as they decorate their whole property in lights and you can walk all around it. We were game so the following lights were taken on the grounds of the Mesa Mormon Temple 

This was from a distance, looking at the decorated Palm trees

 

Again from a distance, you could see the camels and three wise men walking across the lawn towards the temple

 

A bit closer look

 

There were millions of lights. Every thing that could be decorated, was!

 

The lights around a central pond

 

We have gone full circle through the grounds and are back where we started. It was a marvelous sight and well worth going. It was free and they weren't even asking for donations. they had a stage with a choir singing so it was very festive. A wonderful, fun, evening spent with Grace & Malcolm