Exploring the Apache Trail, Arizona

A few weeks ago we took a drive out on the Apache Trail with some of our dear friends to see the spring desert in bloom.

We made a quick stop at Lost Dutchman State Park to see if there were flowers in bloom there, but we were a bit too early for that area.  The Superstitions Mountians were gorgeously green though.

Spring in the desert is a beautiful thing, especially with all the rain we've had lately.

This is Canyon Lake.  We ate lunch by Apache Lake and also drove beside Roosevelt Lake.  It's surprising how much water is out there in the desert.

We made a quick stop at Tortilla Flat.  Cathy found a nice necklace in the gift shop and we picked up some drinks in the restaurant.  This is the second place I've been this year where the walls are covered with dollar bills. I think it's actually a clever way for the restaurant owners to make a few extra bucks.

Just look at these amazingly delicate flowers that bloom in the desert before it gets hot.  Wow!  Aren't they beautiful?

Then when we got out to take pictures of the flowers we came across this old rusted out can.  It's been a long time since I've seen a can that had to be opened this way, so I just had to take a picture of it.

 And look at this sea of lupines!  Wow!  The roadsides were filled with them.

There were poppies too!  Isn't this a sweet color combination?  Blue, white, and that butterscotch yellow!

Marshall had a bunch of new camera equipment that he was trying out, and I'll bet he got some great photos.

We stopped to see Roosevelt Dam (which I had never been to).  If you look down near the lower right part of the dam, you'll see two pick up trucks to give you an idea of the size of it.  It's massive!

This bridge is just beyond the dam.  Originally the road actually went over the dam, but when they had to raise the height of the it they moved the road.

And since we were running out of daylight we didn't have time to stop at Fish Creek or at Tonto National Monument, so I guess we'll have to plan another trip out there.

All in all it was a perfect day!

Have you ever been there?

Let's Rewind...
Life has been so busy for us over the last few weeks that I've missed posting about several wonderful outings that we've had, so I'm going to rewind a bit and see if we can catch up on some of the fun.

Back in mid-September we had one jam-packed night!

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We had the chance to ride the Phoenix Light Rail (aka Valley Metro) for the first time. After work, we drove down to central Phoenix with Marshall and Cathy and met some other friends, John and Suzi at the Metro station at Central Avenue and Camelback Road. Coincidentally, that's around the same place where I had taken pictures (above) a few weeks before when we drove down Central to Terry's musical "gig" at St. George's.

I like the new look of the area. It looks a lot different than when I went to Central High School back in the 70's. The Baskin Robbins and Lunt Avenue Marble Club are missing from the north corners of the intersection and of course the light rail fills the southwest corner.

Within minutes, the clean and quiet train delivered us just steps from Chase Field, so we could watch a Diamondbacks game with a great group of friends and folks from Open Door. The Dbacks played the Colorado Rockies and won 7 - 5. That was a nice bonus.

After the game, we were treated to fireworks above the stadium.

Then we heard two Diamondback players share about their faith. Stephen Drew and Blaine Boyer.

And to end the evening, we got a free concert by the band, Mercy Me also at the stadium. You could tell by watching him, that the leader of the band, Bart Millard has a sweet and gentle spirit and a great voice, of course. (Amy you need to look at his favorite artist/band and movie in his bio.)

They closed with one of my favorite songs. Actually I want it to be played at my funeral, o.k.? It's called "I can only Imagine" and it's about going to heaven.

After a long full evening we headed back to the Metro station to catch a ride back to our cars. The ride back was much more crowded, but still very smooth and fairly easy. A few other friends were on the same car on the train ride back...Don, Carol, Bruce & Ellen.

Soon we arrived at our Central and Camelback stop. It was after midnight, but well worth the long evening. We said goodbye to John and Suzi, then headed home.

What a fun adventure with a precious group of friends...and the next morning Terry and I had to get up and drive to Los Angeles to see Amy, Andrew and Kevin. Crazy weekend, but what a blast!

More on that to come...

The Many Faces of Andrew Schubert - Happy Birthday Andrew !!

Today is Andrew's birthday. This first photo is from when Amy & Andrew first started dating. Doesn't Andrew look so, so young?

This weekend they came over to Phoenix from their home in So Cal. We were excited to see them! We haven't been together since Christmas.

The picture with his cousin, Lucas was taken at Christmas in 2003. He's a great cousin!

They arrived around mid-day on Friday and we just relaxed a bit, Andrew went swimming and we got ready to go out for his birthday dinner at Richardson's. Andrew loves spicy food, so we thought that Richardson's New Mexico cuisine would be unique and perfect for his birthday celebration. Andrew got chorizo-stuffed pork chops. I didn't bring my camera (because Amy brought hers), so hopefully she'll post some pics from dinner (although it was pretty dark, so not sure how well they turned out). I think Andrew liked the food.

Saturday we had a BBQ - Pool party in honor of the 4th of July and Andrew's birthday. We feel privileged that he chose to spend his birthday weekend here when he could have been anywhere. We had lots of family and friends over. I'll post more about that later. This post is for Andrew.

The pic of Amy & Andrew in red and blue was taken exactly 1 year before they got married when Amy was in Kim & Jed's wedding in November 2004. This was one of Andrew's short hair phases.
Then a year later, on their wedding day he was looking a bit shaggier, but still handsome. Shoot, he looks cute no matter how his hair is cut.

I think most of you know that a few months ago Andrew got his first engineering credit on the latest Green Day album. You can see his name on this black page with white print. Awesome huh!

This special edition album set was our birthday present to him. He told Amy that he wanted it and she kindly passed the tip on to us. Those hints really help for someone like Andrew. He always has a long list of music that he's hoping to get, but because his tastes are so eclectic, we would never be able to guess what he wants, so we're happy to get the inside info.

This last pic is from yesterday when Andrew was going thru the box of albums that my sister, Diane and her boyfriend, JD gave him. If you haven't heard, he collects vinyl and loves it! I think he'll enjoy going thru all of these oldies. There were Beatles and Eagles and I don't know what else in that box.
We're just so thankful to have Andrew in our family! He's so sweet and considerate and loves our daughter like no one else can. He's got a great sense of humor (although a bit bizarre) and loves to laugh. He is a great cousin to the rest of the kids in our extended family and will someday be an amazing dad and uncle, I'm sure.

We're excited to see how well he is doing in following his dream of being a recording engineer. He's a hard worker, conscientious, smart, creative and responsible. He knows how to keep information confidential for their high profile clients and is learning so much in his job. We know that he's going to go far in reaching his goals.

What a gift and a blessing he is to our whole family! We're so thankful that God sent him our way.

Happy birthday Andrew. We love you!

Coffee Cup History - Continued...

I'm sure this coffee cup will be familiar to you. It's from "Friends", the TV Show.

I bought this cup at NBC studios when I had a chance to go to a taping of the show with one of my own friends (Kathy Oatey). We were there in one of it's last seasons in production. It was a special privilege to see the cast and their relationships with each other in real life while on the set. There were many laughs and a long night of taping, but I'm happy that I had the chance to witness that little bit of history.

Garage Cleaning & Coffee Cup History

As is the tradition in the Hann household, Monday holidays are reserved for big projects at home. Not that it's a requirement, but it just seems to work out that way. So, I didn't mention it, but sometime last year (we think it was Memorial Day) Terry and I painted the inside of the garage before it got too hot to be in there.

We knew the garage needed a thorough cleaning and organizing, but I wanted the walls to be painted and in better shape before we got everything organized and put away. Besides, I KNEW that it would probably be decades before we ever did anything with it again.

So, nearly 9 months ago we pulled all the stacks of boxes, decorations, yard tools, camping gear, old paint cans and junk away from the walls and painted everything. We used a couple of cans of "Oops" paint so it doesn't all match exactly, but it's close enough for a garage and looks MUCH better than the old dirty white paint that was probably done when the house was built. The photo at the top is pretty much what it has looked like since then. We had just enough of a path from the front to the back to get thru if we needed to, but really no space or order to accomplish anything in there.

Since last May, we somehow just couldn't find a full day to work on the next step, which was the organizing. Finally we were motivated to get some things together for our nephew, Daniel's fund raising yard sale (which is this weekend) so on President's Day we were able to get to it.

The 2nd pic is what it looks like now. We add more shelves and got rid of some stuff, and were able to get about 99% finished with just a few more racks to hang, but it looks and functions so much better. We're actually thinking that we may be able to park a car in there soon! Wow!

So this brings us to the coffee cups. Some of you know that I used to collect coffee mugs back in the 70's and 80's before many of them were broken in the 1994 Northridge earthquake. I never counted exactly how many I had, but it was probably somewhere in the range of 200. I used to have many of them hanging on pegs around the top of our kitchen and dining room and many fell during the earthquake. It was quite a mess!

So after that, since we still lived in earthquake country, I decided to collect something a little less breakable (like birdhouses). Now I don't really collect anything specifically (except pictures).

Anyway, when we were cleaning the garage, I decided to go thru several crates of coffee mugs to see if I could whittle down the collection that I kept. I decided to just keep mugs that had personal significance, like belonging to someone who had passed on, or had historical significance, with dates or memorable info on the mug (like the ones I'll blog about). I have several others that I'll post later, but since I've been so long winded today, I'll start with just one.

This is from a restaurant named Sambo's. Do you remember it? It was a coffee shop, like a Denny's or Bob's Big Boy-type place. The tops of their walls were covered with murals from the story "Little Black Sambo". (Did you have that book growing up?) I don't remember the specifics of the story, but I seem to recall that it wasn't very politically correct, which apparently led to the end of the restaurant chain.

I was amazed to discover that the original Sambo's wasn't really even named after the book and that the founding restaurant is still open in Santa Barbara. We'll have to visit sometime.

The Sambo's I spent the most time in, was the one that was on Indian School and around 28th Street in Phoenix. That's the one that was closest to our church, "Open Door Fellowship" (now in a different location) and the outreach ministry "Hand in Hand". Large groups of high school and college age kids would migrate to Sambo's. We would drink gallons and gallons of coffee mostly and sometimes scrape together a few bucks to get a salad or fries. If we were really rich, we'd actually get a burger! I'm sure the servers dreaded having to wait on us, because we were all poor and no matter how much we wanted to, never tipped very well. We had some deep and meaningful conversations there and I got to know many who are still my friends today, including my husband (before he was even my boyfriend).

I have wonderful memories of those times when we could just sit and chat for hours on end till well into the night or the wee hours of the morning. What a precious season that was...

SUPER BOWL BOUND CARDINALS!!!!

Can you believe it? Neither can I! No time to post any details, but here are a couple of pics that my friend Julie took of our group at the Cardinals game yesterday.

You know, the game that they WON and qualified them for the SUPER BOWL? It's still unbelievable!

If you click on the tailgating picture and look in the background, that guy has a satellite dish and plasma TV in the back of his truck. Pretty funny! But he wasn't even one of the most hard core fans. You'll have to come back to see some of them.

We had a blast with some of our great friends and our seats were awesome! It was well worth the money. Wish we could go to the Super Bowl, but that's pretty much impossible unless we were to win a contest or something.

Come back to see more details soon.

And God said, "Let there be rain."
We were awakened very early this morning to the sounds of the wind whistling thru our windows. I'm not sure how strong they were, but it's been blowing and raining pretty hard this morning. Our power even went out for a few seconds. It's hard to tell from the photos, but it's kind of a blustery day. We had a flash flood warning for our area today too.
You can see Terry on our balcony, enjoying the weather.


It's actually a nice change of pace, although it prevented Rosanne & Marilyn from going parasailing today. We're hoping for better weather tomorrow. I'll be their photographer from the shore. What fun!

So, as mentioned before, there's a lot to report. Let me try to pick just a few highlights to talk about. My current photo count is around 1400 plus the 50 or so on the two disposable underwater cameras that I bought. Of course, I took over 700 just on the first day, on the road to Hana. Several people in the group have taken pictures too, so we should have a great collection once the trip is complete. The photo of the beach chairs is from yesterday. We've had nearly ideal weather all week, so we can't really complain about a rainy day.

Yesterday we spent some time relaxing at the beach. Alison asked me to take this picture of her husband, Michael sleeping. (click to enlarge) Doesn't he look so innocent? Like a little boy.

We also had some great free entertainment on the beach.
Check out this "island boy" doing a headstand on his boogie board. We saw flips and tricks of all sorts.

I was enthralled with this kite surfer too. There were times that the wind lifted him up out of the water and carried him 10 feet or so in the air. Very cool! He was out there for what seemed like an hour or more. He had to be exhausted when he was done.

Here are some pics of the rest of our group. In order as shown:

Dan & Pam: Pam is Steve & Barb's daughter and Dan runs Wide Open Films out of our offices. Sweet couple!
Gary & Richelle (Richelle is Steve & Barb's trainer and has been doing classes for anyone interested while we're here.) We haven't taken advantage of it, though. I can't speak for Terry, but for me, it's because I am so out of shape that I was worried about being too sore to enjoy the rest of the vacation.
Gary is a Tennis Pro for his own, Donnelly Tennis Academy. Check him out if you're in need of lessons in the Scottsdale area. They have 5 kids! It's been so much fun getting to know them.
Mark & Marilyn (Can you tell it was a bit windy?) Marilyn does all the accounting for the office. Her office is right next to my desk and it's been great getting to know her over the last few months. She's a hoot! Once in a while she'll just break into song, singing something from an old musical. She's a girl after my own heart...reminds me of having the kids at home singing all the time.

Mark does something relating to connecting investors with businesses for sale. That's all I know, except for the fact that he keeps track of thousands of contacts in a spreadsheet. It's amazing that he can keep track of so many people that way. He's a wonderful guy, from what I can tell...he's pretty quiet, so it may take some time. Rosanne & Ken - Rosanne is Executive Director & Giving Officer for Steve & Barbara. She's also the one who hired me and is my direct boss. She's an awesome lady to work with and for and has become a friend as well. I love her spirit of adventure. She went to Africa earlier this year with her teenage grandson. How awesome for both of them! Ken is a chiropractor and a great guy as well. It's fun getting to know him.
Last night we went to the Feast at Lele, in Lahaina. It's a wonderful luau type event with food and dances from four different island regions. What a treat! It was a little windy at the start of the night, but calmed down later on. The performers were all so talented and the costumes were amazing. The food had excellent variety and with 4 different regional food courses, plus dessert there was plenty of it. The dances were gorgeous.

My favorite was the fire dance, as you can imagine. Here's just a glimpse of what they looked like. By the time the fire dancer was finished he was glistening with perspiration. That must be a warm and dangerous job! I wonder if he gets hazardous duty pay?

So that's just a glimpse of today and yesterday. I'll go back to the previous days as time allows.

Sorry for the spacing issues. I just gave up on trying to get rid of all the gaps.