Tortilla Flats

Today Brent and I took a motorcycle road trip to Tortilla Flats with some of Brent's friends. This is an annual thing Brent and his motorcycle buddies do. Tortilla Flats is located in the Superstition Mountains two miles past Canyon Lake. It was a beautiful day to go riding!

Here we are in our motorcycle crash gear. It was a little warm to wear the jacket, but it's better to have the jacket than to have major road rash if we have an accident.

Tortilla Flats is just a couple of old buildings along the side of a secluded road. It has a campground down by the stream. They have an indoor restaurant or an outdoor bar-b-que patio area where you can eat. We always eat outdoors because they have a couple of old cowboys who sing to you while you eat.

The outdoor patio was jam packed with visitors today. We had a hard time finding a seat to eat lunch at. When we did find a seat, we sat with some visitors from Wisconsin. Brent had fun chatting about his "homeland" with his kindred Wisconsians.
Tortilla Flats offers some traditional western toursit sites like a gunfight every hour, a replica of a stagecoach, man hanging from a tree, an old museum about the size of a 4x8 sheet of plywood, and an ice cream parlor that serves homemade Prickly Pear ice cream. (Prickly Pear is the fruit off of a prickly pear cactus. Yes, they really do make it into ice cream. Brent had some today and it was pink.)

The old metal stagecoach.The man hanging from a tree. This is very morbid.

The walls and ceiling of the ice cream parlor are covered in $1 bills. The decorating of this shop took several thousands of dollars!

So if you want to go someplace a little different in Arizona, where the desert scenery is beautiful and accented by a cool running creek, and the food is pretty good, I recommend heading out to Tortilla Flats!

Happy Birthday Brent!

On February 26th, Brent turned 43! To celebrate this momentous event in his life, we went out to dinner at Fudruckers and had the best burgers and fries. For dessert, Brent had his favorite chocolate malt.

Mitchell wanted to get Brent something nice for his birthday. He spent $1 of Brent's money trying to win him a stuffed animal from the MACHINE.

Unfortunately, Mitchell did not win Brent a special stuffed toy :(

Next we went to the Mesa Arts Center to see a performance called "The Price for Freedom." The show was about individual stories of men and women who experienced World War II. It wasn't about weapons, war strategy, or all the reasons we had to go to war. The story was portrayed through news and media footage from the war, stories from actual letters written by families, and through music.

The men who wrote and produced the show are friends of Brent's. This is how we heard of this fantastic show. The show gave me new insights to historical tidbits that I hadn't heard of before. For example, whenever a family sent someone out to war they put a blue star in their front window. People walking or driving down a street would know if you had someone serving in the war. If your family member died during the war, the star would be changed to gold. As stories were told of a family who sent two young men off to war, it was sad to hear the reactions of neighbors who walked by the home and noticed that one star was changed to gold. Then later in the war, both stars were gold.

It was a fun birthday night out on the town with the family!

The Arizona Woodwinds Symphany

Last night the boys and I went to Tempe Center for the Arts and watched two incredible bands perform. The Arizona Woodwind Symphony has two members that we know. One of them is Ms. Parker, Grant's band teacher; and the other is Mrs. Wilson, a math teacher I work with. The musical numbers that the bands performed were varied and fun to listen to. The really cool part was that each ticket was only $6. I guess our family can afford to be a little cultured once in a while!

The boys had to dress nice for our special night out on the town.

Grant has such great expressions for the camera.

Mitchell didn't want his picture taken the rest of the evening. However, notice how dirty his hands are. I guess these are working man hands!

A little bit of work...

Brent's friend Brad is in the real estate business. From time to time, Brad needs to clean up a property or fix things up on a property before he can sell it. This last Saturday he called up and asked for Mitchell to come and work for him for the day fixing up a house. Mitchell was able to get his first "employment" experience. He learned how to do many tasks including how to caulk things. When he didn't do it correct the first time, Brad showed him how to do it correctly. Mitchell was then able to do the caulking really well. This pattern repeated itself throughout the day with all of the projects he was given. We learned that Mitchell does better when he is shown exactly how to do something. Then he can do it with no problem or mistakes. He worked hard from 11am until when I picked him up at 7pm and he was paid for his work. Mitchell now has a taste of the "real world."

The Very Busy Grant

Grant has become a very busy young man. He currently plays the clarinet and the bass clarinet for the 6th grade Pueblo Band. His spring concert is on March 3rd at 7PM. This month Grant chose to go out for the school track team. He is excited to do the shot put and the high jump. His first practice was last week on Thursday. He came home hungry and exhausted. He didn't want to do anything the rest of the evening. I think I will really like track practices :) His first track meet is March 3rd at 4:30PM. March 3rd will be a VERY busy day. Grant is also very active in his scout troop. During his first year as a Boy Scout, he has just about completed his Tenderfoot, 2nd Class Rank and 1st Class Rank. Today his troop took a 5 mile hike at the San Tan mountains. I really wanted to join them but my lungs just aren't back to normal yet. Grant enjoyed the hike and being with his troop. Although Grant is a busy young man, he still finds time to play video games and hang out with his friends. Fun, fun, fun!

Merry Christmas, Happy Birthday and Happy Valentines Day!

For Christmas and my birthday I have asked Brent to hang this old painting in our living room. The painting was Brent's grandparents and sustained water damage quite a long time ago. Before the picture could be hung on the wall, it had to be repaired. Brent has had intentions of fixing the painting for several years, long before we even met. So for Christmas I asked to have the picture fixed and hung. It didn't happen. For my birthday I asked to have the picture fixed and hung. Brent purchased the supplies to start it. For Valentines day I asked to have the picture fixed and hung. So here it is, February 16th, 2009 and the picture not only was fixed but it was hung on the wall!!!! Yippee!

Pneunomia

Last week on Thursday, I came home from work not feeling very well. All day I had the chills and then felt hot. I had so many household things to take care of so I dug in and got to work despite not feeling well. Finally, around 9PM while I was sweating buckets and doing the ironing, I took my temperature. It was 103! Yikes, I realized I really was sick. This was just the beginning of a very long and sweaty illness.

The rest of that night and all day Friday I did nothing but freeze for a few hours and then would be sweating with a high fever for a few hours. Then the process would repeat. At 8pm that evening when my temperature was 104.2, I had Brent take me to the emergency room. They did a chest x-ray and blood tests and everything was in the normal range. They said I could have a virus so I should get lots of rest and drink lots of fluids.

The next four days were the same as Friday: back and forth with high fever and chills. I had a blessing Saturday afternoon and was very hopeful that I would be well soon. However, after missing my 3rd day of work (Tuesday the 27th), I called my doctor's office to see if they could see me. They didn't have an opening until the next day at 4:20PM. I figured I would be in the emergency room by then or would be well. I made the appointment anyway.

That evening I had another priesthood blessing. In the blessing it said that I would be able to figure out where I should get treatment. Later that evening my fever was back to 103 and my head hurt really bad. I kept thinking to myself that the Emergency Room needed to run more tests, there was something they missed. I told Brent that I needed to go back to the ER even though it would cost another $150 copay.

The ER ran the tests again. This time they compared my chest x-ray from Tuesday with Friday and found that I had pneumonia. They did a CT Scan of my chest to confirm the diagnosis. I was grateful to have a diagnosis because then I could get treatment. I wasn't expecting to admitted to the hospital for a few days for that treatment. But it was just what I needed. On Friday the 30th I was released from the hospital with no more fevers! I have lots of medicines to take to clear out my lungs. I still have shortness of breath when I walk around the house but it is improving.

Brent did an amazing job running the household, taking care of the boys and running his business on the side. My ward family started bringing in meals this week too which was a big help. Thanks for all of your phone calls and prayers to get well. In a few weeks I should be back to normal.