Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Papago Park

We went to Papago Park, "hiked" hole in the rock, and had a picnic. It was fun. I say "hike" because it is literally a quarter mile. So not much, but really cool.
You can see the lake we picniced at. We found some shade under one of the palm trees and tried to cool down. It was great.
Here is the hole. You walk through there and then see the views like in the two pictures above.

Desert Botanical Gardens

Mesa has a culture pass that you can check out from the library. It gives you admission to a few different places around the valley for free. There are a few restrictions but not bad. I got the one to go to the Desert Botanical Gardens. We went early on a Saturday morning. We pretty much walked around in the heat...looking at cactuses. Can it get any better? Some were blooming so that made it better. I don't know if I would pay $15/per person to see all the cactuses, but for free it was cool. It would probably be better when it isn't so hot outside.






We saw tons of thses lizards around.
And these birds.


Monday, June 15, 2009

Pinning Ceremony

Jeff's school had a pinning ceremony. They had food, and a little ceremony for it. Afterwards they got class pictures taken. Here is a close up of Jeff in his class picture.

And Jeff's class. He is two rows up and three people from the right on the right side of the picture.
Here we are just after the ceremony.

And Jeff right after receiving his pin. You can see it on his pocket.
Jeff receiving his pin.

And Jeff's name before the pinning.

"The Pin is presented to students completing their first year of study. The triangular gold pin symbolizes membership into the physical therapy profession and also represents students' association with A. T. Still University. The pin is surrounded by an aqua border, characteristic of the color of the physical therapy doctoral hood. The triangular shape represents the integration of body, mind and spirit."

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Las Vegas

We went to see the Blue Man group at the Venetian on Saturday night. Thanks to Lances parents who forced us to use their tickets. We loved the show. Before we went in we walked around the Venetian Hotel for a few minutes. Here I am with one of the boats you can take a ride on. And then the whole group in the Venetian.
And waiting for the show to start. Looking really excited.

Our row waiting for the show to start.
Here we are after the show with one of the Blue Men.

We went and toured the Ethel M. Chocolate factory. No one was there, but we did get our free sample of chocolate. We also got to see the cactus gardens. Real exciting for those of us who live with cacti. This is really the only picture Jeff took while there. Can you see the similarity?
The first night we walked the strip. This picture doesn't really look like we are on the strip...but we were. Jeff in front of the fountains Bellagio. We got there right in time to see them start.
And some more fountains.
It was such a fun trip. We had a blast.

Friday, June 12, 2009

Flowers

Jeff always takes pictures of flowers, and these were so pretty I decided to put them on their own. These ones were taken at the Jacob Hamblin House.
And the next couple were at the Brigham Young house.





Thursday, June 11, 2009

St. George

Jeff's school break just happened to coincide with Mindy and Lance's and Lance's Family's vacation to St. George and Las Vegas. We were lucky to be allowed to tag along. And it was soo much fun.

The first night there we went to the Tuacahn theater to see Annie. Jeff didn't even now what the story was about, but could (unfortunately) sing along with every song. It was windy, but the weather turned out to be nice and they did a really good job with the play. Here is the group. Well mostly me, Mindy, and Lance.

And here is Jeff and I before the show.
Here we are at the Jacob Hamblin house. They kept telling us it was out in the middle of nowhere and that it was just some shack. It was way better than I was expecting from that description! Here is the group that was there for that portion. Lance's Parents, his nephew Daniel, sister Donny, Lance, Mindy, Jeff and Me.
Jeff and me in front of the same building.
We also got to visit the Brigham Young house. This is the traditional picture taken in front of the traditional tree. We had to wait for an old lady to get out of the way before we could finally take the picture. She took forever but finally moved. And we got the picture.
Jeff and me in front of the Brigham Young house. For such a small building the tour took forever.
Jeff wanted to see where his grandma was buried. It took forever to locate. We finally found his great grandma's headstone. Norma is Jeff's Grandma. I thought that since we found his grandma's name on a headstone in the same cemetery we could count that. Nope.
We looked for over an hour for this one. Grandma Norma.
And a close up.

We spent a lot of time in the pool. We seriously went swimming twice a day, every day. We spent every night in a different hotel, 4 total, so we were really able to judge which ones had the nicest pool. And which ones had the nicest continental breakfast. Lance really enjoyed the hot tub, while Mindy and I worked out.