Have a fun visit! Berridge Nursery and Baker Nursery are both very much worth visiting (both are in Phoenix, just do a quick search on google for their websites). The Phoenician Resort is definitely worth a tour if you're a gardener (there is a guard at the entrance but you can just truthfully say you're there to see the cactus garden, or to grab lunch etc). I LOVE the landscaping at the Gainey Hyatt resort in Scottsdale--the landscaping is out of control beautiful and the lobby is one of those great indoor/outdoor spaces with a view over one of their many pools, their golf course, and a great view of Pinnacle Peak Mountain. Parking is super easy and there's a bar and a couple of restaurants there too. Nice for a quick stop. I also love to tour the plantings (and grab a bite or a coffee) at the Biltmore Resort (very old Hollywood and tons of neat lush landscaping) and the charming boutique and mostly tropical old world Royal Palms resort--both in Phoenix. For shoppinng there's no nicer mall in the US than Scottsdale Fashion Square (maybe Alamoana Mall in Honolulu comes close), and again, if you're a plant lover, Kierland Commons is a WONDERFUL place to stroll and shop--it's a nicely planted indoor/outdoor shopping district on the Scottsdale/Phoenix border. Huge date palms, a lawn area, fountains, and excellent large planters and a ton of great retailers and restaurants. I go there at least once a week. Definitely visit the Desert Botanical Garden too. It's a wonderful place to see some really nice specimens of desert plants from around the world. If you like sort of tacky but sort of fun things, Dolly the Steam Boat tour of Canyon Lake is fun and a nice drive (again just search on google). There are also a ton of Jeep tours and horse tours you can do too. Let us know what you do, and how you like the activities. We all get a lot of winter and spring visitors so some feedback would be great. Have a lovely visit! Safe travels, Grant

Interesting predicament! The zoo President and CEO sounds rather arrogant, and arrogance can be lethal to ecology (not to mention public relations!) If the Russian Olive is truly contained, as in an aviary, perhaps the gardening groups might acknowledge the controls, and offer to assist the zoo in obtaining a DNR permit. Rather than walk away, they can encourage the zoo to do what is legal and ethical, and comply with DNR regulations for any additional controls. An astute CEO would see the benefit to all concerned. As for bamboo, our zoo in Toronto has appealed to Master Gardeners for info about a variety that can survive here. They also need it for certain animals. Alas, bamboo is near impossible to grow in Canada, so invasiveness is hardly an issue. Is that also true in Minnesota?

It was more that I was soooo excited to have such a great kitchen in a house that was in our price range and I saw it as "wow, I might have picked all of this myself... except for the counters." I really love shaker cabinets and although natural maple wouldn't have been my first choice, it wouldn't have been my last either. From the moment I saw the house I had in my head that the kitchen could be perfect if I just replaced the counters. I LOVE corian counters, I know most don't, but we had them in our first house and I really loved the surface. Then the list of things we wanted to do in "phase 1A" of making the house our own was formed and I just couldn't justify ripping out perfectly functional 1 year old counters because I wanted corian that would have cost nearly $5k. With that same $5k we did everything else in the entire downstairs, including new crown moulding in the dining room and living room, the wallpaper and borders, paint, the floor in the kitchen (the old one was just not functional for us) plus a bunch of plumbing work (some old house issues but also installing a whole house filter, slop sink in basement, plus running water and gas for washer/dryer on the first floor) and other assorted stuff. That money went a LONG way to making the entire house "ours" and frankly, if we had used them for counters i think the impact would not have been as great.... or rather that I managed to achieve just as much impact by changing just about everything else and leaving the counters as is. Unless anyone here has a small house and a huge pot of money I'm sure you all know what I'm talking about on that front. So no, I didn't care much for the counters when I first moved into the house but once I decided to work with them, I surprised myself by how much I ended up liking them. One thing I liked about the PO's kitchen (even though I didn't like a lot of his decor choices) was that it felt fresh and clean and I think the green counters contribute heavily to that. I figured out a way to work my favorite color, cranberry/pomegranite red, into the equation as well as that vintage coziness I was seeking using some of the better parts of my husband's coca cola collection and it all just sort of clicked. I love my house and I love that I've been able to do most things on a budget with a little creativity, some ingenuity and a LOT of patience. To get back OT a little bit, I think actually this is a benefit of a smaller house... yeah you might not have as much room to store materials but the scale of the projects being smaller allows you to save time and money on less materials. Our house is on the big end of small... well, frankly I don't consider 1900 sf to be all that small but we have many rooms, 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, an eat in kitchen, formal dining room, living room, mud room and a fairly large front entry hall and we face a lot of small house challenges because with the exception of our kitchen, our rooms are on the small side... but when we were looking at homes I was overwhelmed at the thought of renovating larger homes. It felt like I'd never be able to get my arms around the whole thing. With a smaller house, there feels like there is an end in sight even with my snail's pace.

Thank you, Cattyles. So sweet of you! Jane recently moved AM to another server so the pictures could be larger. She asked me to update my photos, so almost all of them were recently retaken. DD1 now uses the Shabby Chic room, so most of that is stored. DD2 took the sofa for her MBR sitting area. I'll probably get DD1 to sell the RASC and other bedding on ebay. I really don't need and it's silly to store when someone else could enjoy. Lynn, she made the reins from leather jewelry cording. Perfect touch, wouldn't be the same w/o it. I just took a vase DD2 bought 9 years ago, but has been stored the last 6. Always a chance drilling hole could break, but it wasn't an expensive vase and will make a cute lamp for her MBR sitting area. I also have several lamps in closets... I really should start selling things I don't use/haven't used/don't plan to use. We actually lease to an antique store and the owner has told me to bring whatever I want to put in his space. I need to make a list/take pictures to send him, making sure I'm not overstepping his offer and that there is room. But then I go back/forth on if/when we do move, what bedroom(s) do I want to not have in the next house. Don't want to get rid of something only to regret it later. I kept thinking DD1, DD2 or DS will want something. So far, not.