October and another Trip Outside Part 1

On October 3, I picked MP up from school and we headed back downtown to find the one elusive pipe that we were unable to find on our last trip downtown.  There it was in kind of a weird spot along Cushman Street so we found a parking spot and walked over to get a picture.

On October 10th when I picked MP up, we headed over to Pioneer Park to take some pictures so she could select some to put on her page in the yearbook.  First we walked through Pioneer Village and took a bunch of pictures.

Then we walked over to the Salmon Bake area just to see what it looked like without the large crowds that are there in the summer.  They had drained the little pond just behind all the dredge buckets.

The buildings were closed up, the salad bar empty and no one over at the grill to cook the salmon - so very quiet.  On October 16th, for our activity, we went back to my favorite place, the Morris Thompson Center to take some more pictures and saved them all to disk so she could get the pictures turned in for the yearbook.

I took a day off work on October 17th to I could fly to Arizona during the day and maybe avoid being so tired when I got down there.

It was 19 degrees with a few inches of snow on the ground when I left Fairbanks about 9 a.m.  At 6:00 p.m. when I arrived in Phoenix that number was reversed and I stepped out of the airport to 91 degree temps.

On Thursday afternoon, abenanna's grandson stopped by Grandma's after he got out of school.  Then when I finished working, we decided to go for a walk.  I had been wanting to get over to the Casa Grande Ruins so we decided we could just walk there.  It was a very long long walk in 84+ temperatures.  I hadn't been to the ruins in a long time so it was fun to walk around these buildings that were built in the 1300's.

BA wanted to go through that little door but insisted I go through first.  I definitely had to get down on my hands and knees to crawl through.  On the way back to Grandma's, we stopped at Sonic to get something cold to drink.

On Friday, my two sisters, their spouses, Mom and I went to Florence to eat dinner at LB Inn.  It's always nice in Arizona to eat Mexican food without having to cook it myself. 

Saturday, Oct 20th, abenanna and I hiked up F mountain it was a nice walk since we went in the early morning.  Then I went to the grocery store to pick up some stuff to make salsa for Sister Sue's surprise 60th birthday party (since it was well over a month before her birthday it would be a huge surprise).  I ran into hairball there and took her 8 year old son back to Grandma's with me to spend the day.

Around 4 that afternoon, we headed over to hairballs for the party.  It was a good time but sadly, I wasn't there, when they announced to Sister Sue that it was a party to celebrate her birthday - so not sure just how surprised she was.  :-(

Sunday, Oct 21, Mom went to church and I decided to drive out to Sister Sue's and visit a while since I hadn't been out to her house in a long time.  Her kids all showed up and we ended up going to Florence for pizza for lunch then I headed back to Mom's for the evening.

On Monday when I got off work, Mom and I headed to Mesa as she needed to pick up a few things.  Since we were right near the Mesa Temple, I stopped there to take a couple of pictures.  Since it was Monday, the temple was closed so there were no people walking around the temple grounds.

On Tuesday, morning, abenanna, Mom and I headed to Tucson to meet up with Leaner and her youngest, have some lunch and do some shopping.

Had to stop and take a few pictures on our drive into Tucson.  I love the desert landscape even though I have no desire to move back to the southwest.

We had lunch at La Parilla Suiza on Miracle mile and the food was as good as ever.  Then we went to the Cactus Quilt Shop as I wanted to pick up some chile pepper fabric for a table runner.  Big mistake as abenanna found this cactus fabric and this gorgeous sunset fabric and soon we were buying enough for her to make a quilt and me to make a quilt and there goes the $$$$.

It seems like all I did while I was in Arizona was eat and the time went way toooooo fast and yet in some ways it seems like I was there forever.  On Wednesday night, we went to Anthem and had chinese food which was very good.  Then abenanna and I went back to Mom's house and cut out the fabric so she can get her quilt together.  Then I packed up to prepare to move on to Idaho as soon as I got off work on Thursday.

Oct 25, I flew from Phoenix all the way to Portland.  My plan was to get on the plane and sleep for the 2+ hours the flight was going to take.  But I'm a sucker and when I got on the plane, there was a 4 year old girl sitting in my seat by the window.  I just don't understand how people can get confused that when they have seats B and C - neither of those are a window seat.  She was so cute though and really wanted to look out the window so I ended up in the aisle seat without any chance of getting any sleep.

alexshuman and Joxer picked me up at the Portland airport and we headed east on our 9 hour drive to Burley.  Joxer was such a great job and slept for the whole trip.  I was supposed to sleep while Val drove but I couldn't sleep.  She drove most of the way and I took over for the last 2 hours.  We arrived in Burley at 6 a.m. which was way too early to go to Blaine's house so we pulled into a parking lot and took a 45 minute nap.  Then on to Blaine's to see those grandkids.

We got there in time for breakfast and since it was little JW's 2nd birthday, he had to blow out the candle on his big stack of pancakes.

We played for a while and ate lunch, then we went to the Pumpkin patch to pick out some pumpkins to carve for Halloween.

Aunt Val and the kids.

The family went for a little hay ride while Nana walked around to get some pictures.

ST decided she should teach JW how to play golf - I think those 2 would have been happy to play golf for the rest of the afternoon.

MS and JM posed by all of the pumpkins and gourds.  MS is always so cold and never seems to have the right clothes to stay warm.

After picking out pumpkins, we went back to the house and had a dinner of grilled pork chops and brussell sprouts, then we ate CAKE!  Creepy chocolate cake with gummy worms and spiders crawling all over it.  It was a really cute cake.

And JW thought it was very tasty.

After dinner he opened his birthday presents.  Big sister JM gave him a Thomas the train backpack which I think was his favorite gift along with a light sabre from his Dad complete with sound effects that he was soon copying. 

After a very long long 36+ hours, Val and I were definitely ready for some sleep.  But it had been a good day and was fun to have everyone except Tata together in one place.