Family Field Trip: Pinal County Fair

A couple of weeks ago, we decided to head out to the county fair. We planned to stay for the day, but ended up leaving after a couple of hours because the wind was kicking up so much dust. We did enjoy some pretty awesome potato chips, racing pigs, and Sadie as the juggler's assistant!

This was what it looked like.
We decided to head for home shortly after.

Sadie the Juggler! I took a video as well, but I'm having a hard
time uploading it to YouTube/the blog

Family Field Trip: Mesa Temple Easter Pageant

On Wednesday evening, we attended the Easter pageant at the Mesa Temple. We got there just after 5:30 and David met us there after work. The pageant didn't start until 8 pm, so we had time to eat dinner, walk around the grounds, and go through the Visitor's Center to see the Christus statue. The pageant was superb. They did a great job putting it all together. And it's a big thing! They have 9,500 chairs set up, as well as some space on the grass for blankets and lawn chairs.

On average, there are over 7,500 people who visit each night. The cast is made up of 475 people and this is the 90th year it's been performed! (click on easterpageant.org to learn more)

We had a great time and the temple grounds are always peaceful and beautiful to look at. And thanks to the fragrant trees, the smell was heavenly! (Pun intended.)

This section of petrified log was donated to the
temple grounds in 1976.

These trees and the citrus trees were the wonderful smell!
I believe this is a Texas Mountain Laurel.

Egg Rolls (not the Easter kind)

On Monday, Sadie cooked egg rolls and sweet and sour sauce for us! I'll let the picture speak for itself, except to say that they were AMAZING!

Family Field Trip: Boyce Thompson Arboretum

This was a beautiful place to visit. It's just over an hour away from Casa Grande, but well worth the drive. The Arboretum is the oldest and largest botanical garden in Arizona. It was established by William Boyce Thompson who made his money in mining. He came to Arizona to inspect a mine he had acquired and fell in love with the area. He found nearly 400 acres that was available to be purchased, and he bought the land with the purpose of creating a plant research facility. (He also built a house for himself and a couple of cottages for his two initial researchers, all of which now belong to Arizona State Parks and there are still researchers from the University of Arizona who work out there.)

While we were there we saw (and heard!) several types of birds, toured the cactus garden, the reservoir that was dug to provide water for the animals that live in the garden, the butterfly & hummingbird garden, and enjoyed the cool weather. (It was in the upper 60s when we were there...absolutely perfect!) We will definitely go back again and again. We saw just a small part of what is there, and there are miles of trails for hiking as well as gardens we didn't tour.

My camera battery died after just a few pictures, but David took some photos too. Unfortunately, I can't find where they are on the computer, so you're stuck with the few I took until I can figure out how to get his pictures uploaded here!

More adventures to come!

Pi(e) Day

March 14th is Pi Day. And this year it fell on a Wednesday, which is Amy's day to cook dinner. Since we had lasagna the night before, she wasn't in the mood to make pizza. Instead, she decided to go with a wonderful shepherd's pie and cheesecake pie for dessert.

Wish you could have been here to taste it! It was delicious!

Family Field Trip: Picacho Peak

Today we headed south to Picacho Peak. We had a couple of other things going on today, so we didn't spend a lot of time there. We explored a little and plan to go back again soon. There's a lot of places to picnic, some nice hikes, and beautiful scenery.

Here's a photo that I didn't take that shows just how picturesque Picacho Peak is.

Source

What's significant about Picacho Peak is that it's the site of the westernmost "battle" of the Civil War. Yes, you read that right. Except it wasn't really a battle. It was more of a skirmish. And by skirmish, I mean that a Union Lieutenant decided to disobey orders and confront a group of Confederate lookouts, and just when they were about to surrender, the Lieutenant accidentally discharges his firearm, causing the Confederate soldiers to fire back, killing him and 2 other Union soldiers, wounding 4 more, and one of the wounded soldiers died later that night. The Union did capture 3 Confederate soldiers, however, so at least they got some kind of consolation prize. The Confederate lookouts ended up retreating to Tucson and then the entire army moved back to New Mexico, even though this event delayed the Union's march through the area. (Although we couldn't figure out why.)

The other significant thing that happened at Picacho Peak (or near it, anyway) was that the Mormon Battalion camped there on their way to California.

Here's a video I found that tells the story of the Mormon Battalion.

And finally, here are a few pictures I did take of our mini-field trip today.

Amy and I loved these little yellow flowers.

This is what the sky looked like in the late afternoon today.
It was like Washington, but with palm trees!

 New adventures coming soon!

Fundraising for Girls Camp! *UPDATED

Our ward (CG 5th) and the Spanish-speaking branch (CG 4th) are teaming up to raise funds for the young men and young women to attend their camps this year. (Girls Camp here is twice as much as it was in Washington.)

They've planned a Mexican dinner (chicken enchiladas! YUM!) and dessert auction. The youth were asked to bring desserts, since the dinner is being prepared by CG 4th.

As many people know, Lucy is not terribly interested in anything that takes place in the kitchen--especially baking.

And those same people know that Amy is extremely interested in working in the kitchen--especially when it comes to creating delectable sweets.

What people may or may not know, however, is that Sadie loves to help, no matter what the finished product will be.

While I did not take photos of Amy and Sadie actually working on our dessert auction offerings, I did take some of what we made. There are two of each dessert, but the cost listed is per dessert. (Does this make sense?)

I'll update this post later tomorrow evening with how much each dessert sold for.

Silk Chocolate S'mores Pie
$3.31/pie

Marshmallow Crispy Squares
$4.69/pan

Brownies
$3.16/pan

Salted Caramel Pretzel Cookies
$2.95/box of 20

 I'm not thrilled with the way the cookies look. They spread far too much. Or maybe we should have crushed the pretzels. Or maybe we should have made cookie bars with crushed pretzels on top. Or maybe... It doesn't really matter now because I'm not remaking them. They taste really good, so hopefully that counts for something.

While Sadie, Amy, and I worked on desserts, Lucy painted. That's what she would like to offer at the auction. Here is one of her pieces.

I love it. All it needs is Mt. Rainier in the background. It reminds me so much of Washington.

More soon.

UPDATE: The auction dinner is over! Our desserts ended up being sold for $1 per slice (the s'mores pies and brownies were cut into 8 slices each; I'm not sure about the marshmallow crispy squares), so it wasn't exactly what I was expecting. No matter! Lucy sold her paintings, although I'm not sure what the final bid was. But that's exciting!

And the food was delicious! (See the picture below.)
I'm not sure how much the youth made overall, but it will help all of them with some of the money they'll need this year!

Here's what we had for dinner.

Chicken enchiladas!

It was a very fun evening, and a lot of work went into putting it all together. We enjoyed ourselves and are feeling a part of our new ward a little more all the time.

Photos of Our Crib--So Fly! (I'm a child of the 90s, Yo.) *UPDATED

I finally had a chance to take some pictures of our new place. These are just the main living areas--kitchen, dining, family "room". The bedrooms will have to wait, since we're still organizing and putting things away. I'll add those to this post when I add them.

Anyway, here they are. Enjoy! It may never be this clean again. 🤣

Here are a couple of new photos I've added!

This is what our entry looks like now!

All decorated for Easter!

Master bathroom

Master bathroom