Seeing the Phoenix Area

Friday, Jan 2nd, Curtis had his last day off of work. We took a day trip to go see some of the sights of Phoenix that we had never seen before. We started off at the Wrigley Mansion. This is the Wrigley who invented the Wrigley Gum - Juicy Fruit, Double Mint, etc... He was born in Pennsylvania in 1865. I was so surprised. He built this home in Phoenix for his wife, Ada. He had a home on Catalina Island, and in Chicago. He died at this home. The tour for the Wrigley Mansion is by appointment, costs $11.00 per person. Children under 5 are free.

This following photo is the front door. Curtis is standing by the door. The house was so huge, I could not get but just the door in the photo.

This is the back area. It is all terraced with patios.

This is the grand foyer with stairs and chandelier. You can see they still had some Christmas decorations set up. By the time the tour was over most of the Christmas items had been removed.

From the Mansion you can see the Biltmore Hotel. Mr. Wrigley owned it! So we decided to drive down the hill and go walk around and see the Biltmore. Wow! I can see why people go there. I never did find out how much it costs to stay there.

This is a real Gingerbread Church! The roof tiles were about 4x7 size gingerbread!

This is one of the grounds between the Hotel wings. Each wing had a different landscape. Between one was a pool, another golf, another fountain, another more gardens, etc...

Here is Sandi standing at the Chess/Checker game area. the grass is mowed in between the cement. The playing pieces are plastic...in the old days they were actually carved wood. The checkers pieces were off to the right. They were red and black round cushions!

After touring around the Biltmore Hotel, we decided to check out the Phoenix Mountain area. It is only a couple miles from the Biltmore. It looked fantastic. If any of you like to hike, this looks like a really safe place. There are lots of ramadas with places for brickette bar-b-que. You can rent some of the ramada...with music permits, etc... There were lots of trails going off in all directions. I only saw one bathroom area.

This is the view from the Phoenix Mountain. You can see some of the red roof tiles of the ramadas on the left side of the photo.

We had a great afternoon. Then we went to Paradise Bakery for lunch! Absolutely wonderful!

Oh! And to top it all off...Curtis and I watched the University of Utah play Alabama in the Sugar Bowl. This is the only football game we both have watched EVERY PLAY! Curtis is a UTE grad. We were thrilled that Utah won!!! Go Utes!

New Year's Day

Carrie, Carter, Jason and Jaren stopped in at dinner time (they brought their own pizza) and we had a fun dinner with them. Curtis and I had hamburgers on the grill...yummmm!
When it was time to go home Jaren wanted a funny face photo...so here it is:

Carter is starting to talk more.

New Year's Eve Party

I have posted several photos from our FUN Family New Year's Eve Party last night. Only Jason and Heidi's families were able to join us. I thought I heard Peter say on the phone (he was at the store shopping) that the kids were throwing up and they didn't want to contaminate anyone.

So the rest of the family came over about 5:00 pm. Grandpa cooked his famous yummy waffles! Jace cooked bacon. We had a great New Year's Eve dinner. I was surprised. Each little one ate almost 2 full waffles (4 squares) of Grandpa's. That tells you how good they were.

As you see from this first photo...Noelle slept through the next half hour of noise making! We started about 6:50 pm.

Grandpa and I went to Party City earlier in the day. Grandpa checked out every aisle and had to get the perfect stuff for all 5 kids to have a great evening. We purchased glow in the dark bracelets, streamers, silly string, noise makers, and whistle-like noise makers. Here are the adults trying to pop the bracelets and hook them together so they can glow. Each child had 2.

At the beginning of our evening (after eating) we had the parents draw a Memory of a vacation or event in their family and the kids had to guess them. Heidi drew Disneyland and Haley guessed! Jason drew a train and Jaren guessed their trip to Utah. Jace then drew this photo of Christian when he broke his arm. Christian was so excited with the photo of him, we had to take a photo of it!

Here are the 5 kids on chairs. Grandpa thought if they each had an assigned chair it would make for a more orderly noisey event! They had their horns, whirling noise makers, whistles in their mouth ... but not yet the bracelets!

This next photo is after Grandpa sprayed all the kids with silly string. Haven thought she was stuck with a bomb or something. She had terror on her face. We had to hurry and get it off of her. The rest of the kids loved it! Haven had fun cleaning it all up and giving the remains to Grandpa!

At the end of the evening - here is Jace with his three kids...Haley, Haven, Christian. Some how we missed getting Jason's family in one shot.

We had a great time. They all left about 7:30 pm so they could put their little ones to bed. Then Curtis and I cleaned up, ran an errand to the Drug Store for a member of our ward, then we can home and drank bubbling Apple cider from the Jordan's and watched the New Year ring in in New York City. Then we went to bed! What a Mormon New Year's Evening!

Happy Birthday Curtis

Today is Curtis' 57th birthday! Wow! Time is going by. What an amazing man he is. I just love him! He loves making bread...so he got a new super duper bread machine. Hopefully this one works! It is a Zojirushi brand. We have tried every other kind out there. I think we got the lemons of every brand. His plan for this morning...re-caulk the bathrooms and then go do something. We will probably do lunch or dinner out.

Star Trek

I love the holidays when Curtis has time off work and we can go and do things TOGETHER - especially when either of us is NOT sick or in pain...like last year! So the day after Christmas we decided to go to the Arizona Science Center and see their Star Trek exhibit. Well if you know Curtis...he is a Trekkie! Jason and I both have watched a ton of Star Trek shows and movies with Curtis. So off we went. Boy was it fun. I have to say that the exhibit at the Science Center was probably the best one (at least what I have seen).

So here is a photo taken of Jason and Carter (2), Curtis and Jaren (4), and Sandi standing on the Enterprise in the Transporter Room. Wouldn't it have been cool if I could have beamed to Berlin to see Lisa, or to Reno to see Nick & Serina?!!! Use your imagination!

Here is the Great Captain Curt, First Mate Sandi, and the crew on the Bridge of the Enterprise!
We had so much fun seeing and pretending!

Curtis has all next week off. His birthday is on Tuesday (hint hint). We are doing various day trips around the Phoenix valley ... who knows what is next!