2010 Pat's Run!

This morning Brent and I ran in Pat's Run. This is an annual event that takes place at ASU where Pat Tillman played on the ASU football team. This is the 2nd time Brent and I participated in the 4.2 mile run. I am pleased to announce that we were able to jog/run the whole thing! We even beat our time last year by 4 minutes! Who knows what we will be able to do next year??? Brent and I crossed the finish line in 39 minutes and 48 seconds. I finished in 1,620th place out of the women in the race. Brent finished in 4,060th place out of the men. Overall, we finished in 5,685th and 5,689th place. There were 28,000 people signed up for the run this morning. I hate crowds! I hate the insane line of cars to get in and out of the place. And it is so annoying to start the race in the correct race bracket and have "supposedly" faster runners walking at the beginning of the race. Despite these irritations, I will be running again next year!

Happy Easter!

We had a fun Easter egg hunt in our backyard this year. Robbie, Madi, Bearett, Andrew, Mitchell, Grant, Julie and Jordan all fought over collecting the most eggs. Madi is off to a great start finding the colorful eggs. How many eggs do you see in this picture? How many Easter baskets do you see in this picture? (Answers at the end!)

Mitchell is an awesome big cousin. Instead of finding eggs for himself, he buddied up with Andrew and helped Andrew find the most eggs. Andrew was so excited to be able to get all of the eggs that were hidden up high!

Julie is in on the action and trying to determine which ones are Easter eggs and which ones are lemons.

Andrew's egg collection bag is so weighed down that Mitchell gets to carry it!

Grant was the lucky winner of the HUGE yellow egg! There are lots of treats packed in this one!

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Here are the answers to the hidden egg question:
There are 9 eggs and 2 Easter baskets!

Motorcycles!

Before Brent and I were married, he started purchasing motorcycles that needed to be fixed. He ended up getting a half a dozen of them of various sizes and abilities. This last Fall he finally made time to start fixing them. It was a big undertaking and Mitchell helped where he could. Finally, in February he had a bike ready for Mitchell and a smaller bike ready for Grant to ride. (Brent already had a dirt bike that worked before this project began). Ever since the bikes became roadworthy and licensed, Mitchell and Brent have been taking off to 4 Peaks to go riding on Saturdays. They love it! They've been riding the trails, seeing the desert bloom and just having "manly" fun.

This is Sycamore Creek. The guys had to see how fast and deep it was before riding through it. It is so hot today that I think the water looks rather refreshing!

This last time Mitchell and Brent went, Brent ended up getting cholla stuck in his boot. I think this is a picture of Mitchell being the typical teenager displaying the skill of invincibility!

Grant is still learning to ride is motorcycle. He rides up and down the street in front of our house and has finally made it into 2nd gear. Eventually, he will be able to ride the trails with Mitchell and Brent!

My Baby Turned 13!

This weekend Grant turned 13. Now both of my kids are teenagers! Life goes by so quickly! For Grant's birthday this year he wanted to take a few friends to Fiddlesticks, an amusement park in Tempe. Afterwards, his buddies came to our house for video games and to spend the night. The first thing all the boys wanted to do was drive the go-carts. I lost track of how many times they decided to ride on them. Later the did several rounds of miniature golf and then soaked each other on the bumper boats.

Right before we were going to leave, Grant and his friends chose to ride the "kiddie" rides. Yes, I had four teenage boys riding in dragons.

Watch the boys enjoy the Dragon Ride!

After the dizzying Dragon Ride was over, they jumped onto the train roller coaster. This one may make you throw up!

Take a look at the death defying train roller coaster!

Back at home we had ice cream and Grant's favorite cake, Jello Cake. Then the boys were off playing a variety of video games as late as their eyes would possibly let them!

As shocking as it may seem, the boys eventually stopped playing video games and went to sleep. This is the group right before the smell of pancakes woke them up!

After a hearty breakfast, Grant opened up all of his gifts. He received money and gift cards from his friends and relatives.

He received PSP games from his mom...

...as well as a PSP gaming case to house some of his fun.

Spring Break Adventure!

Today we took a road trip to the Superstition Mountains. We drove past Lost Dutchman State Park and past Canyon Lake. We finally got out of the car when we reached Tortilla Flats. Brent and I have been here several times with our "biker gang" but never here on a weekday or arriving in a vehicle with four wheels. Grant is trilled to be out of the vehicle and ready to explore this interesting tourist trap!

My first stop was to the Ladies Room. This time I had someone take my picture while I peeked my head over the stall. All of the stalls in the Ladies Room have ladies painted on them. I've always wanted to be a "can can" dancer so I had to get my picture with this door. I wonder what pictures they have painted on the doors of the men's room ?

If you aren't a big fan of large boring museums than the museum at Tortilla Flats is for you. The entire museum is behind Grant and I and isn't more than 8 feet by 8 feet. You almost get claustrophobic while you are in there with more than three people!

Brent and I have a tradition to eat lunch at the outside patio and listen to the band. We weren't sure if the band played on weekdays. But it was our lucky day! There were crowds of people and we had to scavenger to find room at a picnic table. Brent's parents were able to join in on our Tortilla Flat traditions.

Brent and I love to eat the charbroiled burgers and then get ice cream at the the little ice cream shop. This time we both got chocolate ice cream. We had Brent's parents try the Prickly Pear Ice Cream. Don't worry, they take all the thorns out of the ice cream before you eat it!

This is the entertaining band at Tortilla Flats. They tell funny jokes and play pretty good music. The drummer had the longest drum solo I've ever heard in all my life. That was my cue to leave and get the ice cream!

At the edge of town, the creek crosses the road. Parts of the road/pavement have been heavily eroded by the fast moving creek. Grant loved hopping around all of the rocks in the creek. Brent is pointing to the waterfall that is created by the four foot drop from the road to the creek.

We left Tortilla Flats and chose to take the long way home. We drove up Highway 88 toward Roosevelt Lake. The road was 22 miles of DIRT. It wasn't paved! We stopped at Fish Creek Hill to check out a scenic view of the canyon.

Our next view from the road was of Apache Lake. This lake is between Roosevelt Lake and Canyon Lake. They are all connected by streams or creeks. Apache Lake is the smallest of the three lakes.

When the dirt road finally ended, we were at Roosevelt Damn. The water level was high enough to release water from the damn. It is amazing how fast the water is coming out!


Just watch the power of the water shooting out from the right side of the damn.

I am hoping you can see the rainbow that he water mist created. Very pretty!

Now we are on the other side of Roosevelt Damn looking at Roosevelt Lake and bridge. We ended up driving past this SUPER long lake and going to the town of Globe. From there we drove to Miami and Superior. I fell asleep at this point and woke up when we were on the Loop 202 and almost home. It was a long drive but it was great to see the desert so green, water in our Arizona lakes and a few wildflowers scattered along the side of the road.

Ostrich Festival 2010

On Saturday, March 13th we attended the annual Chandler Ostrich Festival. This year Brent and I took Grant and Brent's parents to the festival. The first attraction we watched were the ostrich races. We were a little late for the event and didn't get great seats for it.

However, when the second event started, camel racing, we had a great view of the jockeys racing the camels around the track.

Brent's parents and Grant check out one of the camels after it finished the race.

All of the camels were anxious to chow down on some oats. This picture is funny because only one camel is getting the oats. The other three happen to already be chewing on some.

Camels aren't that soft to pet. Grant was careful to not get camel spit on him. As the camel chewed on various things, you could see into its mouth and see lots of saliva. Yuck! One of Grant's favorite places to visit at the festival was the petting zoo. The zoo had normal petting zoo animals like goats and sheep but it also had some unique animals too. Grant loved all of them!

This is a Watusi. It is a breed of cattle from Africa with gigantic horns. It's hard to imagine how this creature carries those huge horns around. Maybe its exhausting and this is why he is laying around the pen!

The baby goats loved Grant and Grant loved the baby goats. He truly has Robles blood running in his veins. We will have to find a way for him to have his own baby goats to raise :)

One of the last shows that we watched was all about Monkeys. This monkey is very colorful. His face changes colors depending on his mood. He looks frightening.

We are looking forward to attending the festival again next year! Maybe you'll be our next guest!

Grant and the Clarinet!

Grant is a great bass clarinet player. He enjoys playing in the school band at Pueblo Middle
School. On Wednesday, March 10th he particpated in his spring band concert. His band performed three songs. His favorite of the three was Cyber Space Overture. It was very cool!

Grant will have one more band concert this year in May. We'll keep you posted on when it is so you can come!