Feb 2016

Early February, we met Bob & Larae Zwart and friends at St. Anthony's Greek Orthodox Monastery outside of Florence, AZ.  We had heard about how beautiful and interesting it was and this was our chance to see Bob & Larae before they left AZ.

In the summer of 1995 six monks arrived in the southern Arizona desert to establish the Monastery from Athos, Greece. They started construction and progressively built all the buildings now used on the grounds.  The monastery is dedicated to St. Anthony the Great, the father of monasticism.  There are chapels dedicated to Saints Seraphim of Sarov, Demetrios of Thessalonica, John the Baptist, George the Great Martyr, Nicholas the Wonderworker and Panteleimon the Healer.  The main church is dedicated to Saints Anthony and Nectarios the Wonderworker.    www.stanthonysmonastery.org

Greek Orthodox Monestary

Beautiful grounds at Monastery

Day visitors are allowed to see the grounds from 10:30 AM to 2:30 PM seven days a week.  We met for the visit at 10:30.  Their requirements for visitors are that men must wear long pants and long sleeved shirts, women must wear long skirts, long sleeved blouses and scarves covering their heads.  Shoes and sandals must be worn with socks at all times.  As it is warm in Arizona most of the time, the monastery provides skirts and scarves for the women, if needed.  We ladies did borrow skirts they offered and we all had brought long sleeves, socks and scarves of our own to wear.  The men in our group enjoyed laughing at our outfits.

Ladies in monastery garb

The gardens at the monastery are beautiful and lush, they have orchards and olive groves.  The chapels and buildings were built with beautiful, ornate wood ceilings and carvings and furnishings brought over from Greece.  The icons we saw were amazing in their color and detail.  We enjoyed the tour and highly recommend it for others.  Afterwards, we all met at the Mount Athos restaurant in Florence for a great Mediterranean lunch.

St George Icon

Chapel interior

Amazing woodwork - hand carved in Greece

February was spent working at our jobs, meals and Happy Hours with friends and family.  We met several times to play cards and dominoes.  The weather was a little cooler at the beginning of February, but each day got better - and we knew it was cold and snowy back home.  No complaints!

Sunset reflection

Back yard flowers

Lyn & Diane stayed with us again on their return from San Diego and we had two great days with them before they headed home.

We continued to do projects to make the house better for us and decided to remove the ramp that was the entrance up to the deck the former owner had put in.  The boards on the ramp continued to warp from the sun and rain, so we ordered a step unit of fiberglass to replace the access to the deck.  Gary tore the ramp off and found the framework underneath would work to raise and use for the deck area.  He did a great job putting it all back together and we re-carpeted that end of the deck to match the other area.  The steps came a week later and he set them up and installed the railings to finish the project.

Ramp before

Carpenter at work

Finished project!