LPG Group | Azure Phoenix Life | May 2023 Digital Newsletter

EVENT CALENDAR

MAY | JUNE 2023

Cinco de Mayo Celebration at Tlaquepaque

Sedona | May 6 visitarizona.com

Tlaquepaque Arts and Shopping Village | May 6 visitarizona.com/events/cinco-de-mayo-celebration-attlaquepaque

Salute a rich heritage on Saturday, May 6th, 2023 11:00am to 5:00pm at Tlaquepaque, with this colorful fiesta! Admission is free and all ages are welcome. Enjoy the music, savory flavors, and colorful dances of Mexico in a South of the border celebration. Cinco de Mayo honors an event in Mexican history that led to its independence.

Mesa Feastival Forest Mesa | May 13

visitarizona.com

Food Trucks in the Park!! Join us in Pioneer Park each week for 10-20 Trucks with Gourmet Street Food. Every week features a different group of trucks. Check out their FaceBook page for weekly lineups! Bring blankets and swimwear for the little ones, to play at Mesa's newest splash pad.

Kingman Route 66 Street Drags

Kingman | May 19 -21

visitarizona.com/events

The Kingman Route 66 Street Drags is an incredibly unique event! Route 66 will be closed for over a week to host this exciting spectacle. 1/8 mile drag races will be held right down the middle of Ol’ 66!

Colt Ford Flagstaff | May 21

visitarizona.com/events/colt-ford

This Georgia singer, songwriter, rapper, musician, performer, and co-founder of Average Joes Entertainment continues to blaze his own trail to mainstream notoriety. Colt’s songs have topped the charts in the rap, independent, and country genres!

Sky Island Summit Challenge

Huachuca Mountains | May 27

visitarizona.com/events/sky-island-summit-challenge Challenge yourself with one, two, or three peaks–all in one day–in the Sky Islands Summit Challenge! Held in partnership with the USDA Forest Service, Coronado National Forest, this event is one of a kind! All participants get an awesome swag bag, event shirt, bragging rights, and amazing views from the top!

Children’s Learning and Play Festival

WestWorld | June 24

mcdowellsonoran.org

The Children’s Learning and Play Festival is a free event that is open to the public and features children’s authors, illustrators, music, live performances, rides, STEM activations, local business vendors and a host of interactive activities for toddlers, children and young adults.

Native Landscaping

With the summer heat waves creeping in, are you stressed about your increased water usage? I think we have all felt the sting of environmental guilt when watering the lawn three times a day, just to keep our precious roses alive. One way to alleviate that guilt and become more ecofriendly, is to fill your lawn and garden with plants that are native to the area. “Naturescaping” is the official term and its described as allowing people and nature to connect and coexist with landscaping.

Your neighbors will thank you too! Planting native flowers, plants and trees is beneficial to the neighborhood you live in because they don’t require water contaminating pesticides and fertilizer. Flowers like those thirsty roses, which are considered exotic to the southwest, can be invasive to other plant life and can disrupt the entire ecosystem. Native plants on the other hand, are already accustomed to their habitat, making them much more ecofriendly.

Some native plants can even enrich the soil, creating an environment for other plants and flowers to flourish. When you landscape with native plants you give other animals, insects and birds a natural habitat to thrive in. For example, the Saguaro, one of Arizona’s most iconic native plants, is home to Elf Owls, Woodpeckers and several other types of small birds. They can grow more than forty feet in the air and are capable of living around 200 years. The Desert Holly is another common Arizona native. Providing food for desert Bighorn Sheep, it requires very little water and produces tiny flowers between January and April. This beautiful plant provides very low maintenance ground cover and can serve as an accent piece to other natives like the Ocotillo or the California Fan Palm. If you’re looking for a May through September bloom, Scarlet Gilia or sometimes known as Skyrocket, is a fiery red tower of tiny trumpet like flowers. Requiring almost no maintenance, this native beauty can typically survive on rainfall alone. Another cactus worth mentioning is the Teddy Bear Cholla. Aside from being aesthetically pleasing, this native gem can serve as a natural barrier, requires minimal maintenance, and houses various small birds. From February to May it will sprout green and yellow flowers and can grow to more than six feet tall. Don’t let the name misguide you though, this cactus will most certainly bite!

With the easy maintenance and low cost of native plants, you don’t have to be a landscape artist to create a cohesive, beautiful and eco-friendly lawn. That’s the beauty of naturescaping – anyone can do it.

REAL ESTATE corner

Chances are you or someone you know has finally taken the plunge and purchased an electric vehicle. Bravo! Better for the planet and now possibly better for your pocketbook, too. Demand for EVs is growing, with plug-in cars expected to make up 23 percent of all new passenger vehicle sales globally in 2025. Experts predict that by 2030, 40 percent of all cars sold will be electric and by 2035, the number will reach 80 percent. Seems everyone will soon be going electric.

Tesla and Toyota, of course, have been the leaders in the electric and hybrid markets. But virtually all automakers are now increasing production of EVs. BMW is set to introduce a dozen new models by 2025. Honda and GM are joining forces to produce millions of more affordable EVs in 2027. Mercedes has stated that all of its newly launched platforms will be electric-only beginning in 2025. With all this new competition comes a decrease in prices. Good for the consumer! In addition, Congress recently announced tax credits of up to $7,500 on electric car purchases that sell for less than $55,000, spurring Tesla and Ford to drop prices.

But just how convenient is it to charge an electric vehicle? Charging your EV at home at night is the easiest and least expensive option. EV owners do need to learn charging station locations and plan out road trips, plotting out charging stops along the way (there are apps for this). There are currently more than 160,000 EV charging stations in the U.S. and more and more are being built. Tesla has recently agreed to open up its system of chargers to non-Tesla EVs broadening the charging landscape. An effort is also being made to standardize the plugs at stations.

The yearly cost of owning an electric vehicle may even be less than half the cost of owning a gas-powered car, considering lower EV maintenance costs and rising or fluctuating gas prices, according to Energysage.com. The cost for a full charge can vary greatly, as can the time to charge, from the fastest of 20 minutes to an hour, to 4 to 10 hours, to the slowest of 40 to 50 hours from empty. Overall, decreased price, increased production, and easier access to charging stations has made electric vehicles more and more appealing to consumers. Now may be the time to check one out if you haven’t already.

IN GOOD TASTE

Fruit & Cream Pie

INGREDIENTS

1/4 cup cold water

14 oz sweetened condensed milk

1 envelope (7 grams) unflavored gelatin

1 prepared 9-inch (6 ounces) graham cracker crust

DIRECTIONS

1 tbsp

1 cup vanilla yogurt

2 cups sliced strawberries and kiwi

Sprinkle gelatin over water in small, microwave-safe bowl. Microwave for 30 seconds or until dissolved. Combine sweetened condensed milk, yogurt, gelatin mixture and lemon juice in medium bowl.

Pour into pie crust. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours. Arrange fruit over filling.

GoodNes.com

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