Wednesday, April 9, 2014 (Oracle, AZ)

We woke to beautiful sunny skies.  We took it slow this morning and decided that even though they have an amazing fitness center, that we would skip working out this morning.  We just had a relaxing breakfast and morning hanging out just enjoying our surroundings.

Reading on the patio with my morning cup of coffee.

Rich went around and took pics of each of the rooms of the house.  We are in the Artesa model home and it is lovely.

Built in BBQ

Fire pit and seating area - golf course behind seating, we are on hole #11

Patio table for outside dining, we ate all our meals here, it was lovely

dining and kitchen area taken from patio doors looking in

great room looking from dining/kitchen area

dining area from great room, you can see the slider out to the patio area on the right

Den

Foyer looking from front door

Foyer looking from great room area

Master bath with walk in closet to the right and separate water closet to the left

Master Bedroom w/bay window

Master Bedroom from different angle

Garage - this is the first time since we have owned our pickup that it has been parked in a garage. 

Laundry room

Great room, dining & kitchen area

Front view of house

 The house also had a powder room and a guest bathroom but we didn't take photo's of them.

We did spend a little time looking at the model homes they have on the property.  The Artesa model that we are staying in falls in the Tradition line which is the beginner models.  The high end models were pretty ritzy and big. 

After lunch we went to the pool and met a very nice couple from Canada who have a home here.  They have owned the home for 4 years and love it, but since they are from Canada they don't live here year round.  They had nothing but positive things to say about the community and we really enjoyed chatting with them.

Part of the "preferred guest" program is that you have dinner one evening with another couple from the community and it offers an opportunity to ask questions and get input about the community from someone who actually lives there.  Our dinner was scheduled for tonight.  We weren't sure how this was going to work out, having dinner with a couple we had never met, but oh well, at least it was a free meal.  Since Saddlebrooke Ranch doesn't yet have their own full restaurant, (they just have a bistro that serves breakfast and lunch) we were driving down the road about 5 miles to another Robson community called Saddlebrooke/The Preserve. 

Saddlebrooke is closer to the Catalina Mountains and have incredible views of the mountains.  Their community is pretty much built out which is why they started the Saddlebrooke Ranch community.  Anyway we found the restaurant and made our way inside.  We ran into the couple that we had met at the pool and said a quick hello before our host couple found us.  I'm sorry to say that I've forgotten their names, but we had a wonderful two hour dinner.  They were very informative and were very easy to talk with.  They were originally from Washington so we had some common ground to talk about besides the Saddlebrooke Ranch community.  Our meals were very good and included dessert, yummy.  While we were eating a herd of deer came down and were browsing on the nice lush green grass.  It was a very enjoyable evening.