An adventure with my daughter and my friend

#25  Be a tourist in Arizona

#29b  Do touristy stuff with Jessica

#52  Go to a dinner and a movie theater

Some of the things I have enjoyed planning are the adventures I am going to have with my family.  This month, it was time to have an adventure with my daughter, Jessica.  Her choice of adventures was to go to Crossroads movie theater in Tucson, a movie theater that serves dinner.  This gives a whole new meaning to dinner and a movie!  I added a couple of things to our adventure--I wanted to tour San Xavier del Bac, and I wanted to go to a miniature museum I had seen in Tucson.  A friend of mine, Felicia, was also in Tucson for a few days, so she joined us for our adventure.

Our first stop was San Xavier del Bac,an over 200-year-old Catholic church that is about 10 miles south of Tucson. http://www.sanxaviermission.org  The San Xavier mission was founded in 1692 by Father Eusebio Kino.  Later, as the current church was being built in the late 1700’s, the money ran out, so the belltower on the right was not finished.  Since they want to keep it authentic, they won't ever finish it!

 Felicia, Jessica and me in the parking lot, ready for a tour!

We visited the gift shop before the tour. I did not have to look very far to find something I wanted to buy there. I collect nativity sets, and they had an abundance of them! I chose my favorite one, then saw the one that looks like San Xavier del Bac, so I had to get it, too. At that point, my budget was spent, so when I saw all of the nativity ornaments, I couldn't get any! Luckily, I know how to get back there, and, before Christmas, I will be going back to get an ornament or two.

My favorite, San Xavier del Bac, and my birthday present from Felicia

I was amazed by the amount of artwork in the church.  I can’t even imagine the amount of time it took to complete all of it.  First, just finding the wood in the desert for all the carvings would take a very long time!  The docent told us that many of the statues needed to be transported from Mexico City, a one year round trip by ox cart.  I admire that type of dedication and commitment.  

A very small portion of the artwork 

By the time the tour was over, we were thirsty, hungry, and hot.  The only place that had air conditioning was the gift shop.  The church just had a lot of open windows to catch breezes and a few fans to help create a few more breezes.  It was a bit warm!  We bought some fry bread and water on our way to the car.  My fry bread with red chili was very good!

As we headed back to Jessica’s apartment to cool off, Felicia mentioned that she had some coupons for food at Arby’s.  One of the coupons was for free food, so we decided to use them.  As we looked at them, we found they were only good for the Arby’s across town, but decided it was worth it because it was free food.  After we drove all the way across town, we found out the coupons were not good until a few days later!  Laughing, we decided that driving all the way across town for coupons that weren’t good yet was just part of our adventure!  Having a plan that fails makes for a much better story than having a plan that works perfectly! We ended up eating Arby's food, even though we didn't have coupons that worked, because we had spent almost the entire drive talking about what food we were going to order, so we were very hungry for Arby's!

That night, we got to go to the Roadhouse movie theater.  https://crossroads.roadhousecinemas.com  

Jessica’s friend, Alex, and Jessica’s roommate, Chelsi, went with us.  I really like the idea of dinner and a movie at the same time.  The nice thing was that the movie was a regular priced movie we didn’t spend more on food than we would have for popcorn and soda.  The choices were bigger, too.  We could have ordered anything from popcorn and appetizers to pizza and burgers. We also got to sit in recliners. You can't get much better than that!

I need to get better at taking pictures. I don't have any good pictures from this part of our adventure! I do have a couple of pictures of people with very strange expressions on their faces......but I want them to still speak to me, so I won't post them!

Unfortunately, we did not have time to go to the museum on this adventure.  That’s OK.  Now we just have an excuse for another adventure!

My first sister adventure!

#22 Get a pedicure
#23 Get a manicure
# 29d Get a mani/pedi with Julie.

On my midlife crisis list, the items I am most excited about are the things I am planning with my family.  I have asked each of my sisters, sisters-in-law, my mother and my daughter to choose something to do with me.  This weekend, I got to do my first sister adventure.  I got my very first manicure and my first professional pedicure!  I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I had a ton of fun!  Julie has just moved, but she said she was ready for a break from unpacking.  She chose a place called Romantic Nails for our experience.  

I was reminded how ticklish my feet are!

I loved the foot and leg massage.  It was very relaxing.  

Julie, Chantel and I getting pampered!

Then I got a manicure.  

Finished product! I would definitely do this again!

Now that my toes look pretty, I need to buy new sandals!

Books, books, and more books!

Midlife crisis list:

#46  Simplify my life

#43a  Attend the Southwest Festival of the Written Word in Silver City, New Mexico (October)

#43b  Attend the Festival of Books at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona (March)

#42  Meet an author I admire

I love books.  I have loved books as long as I can remember.  I tend to pick up books wherever I go--those are my favorite souvenirs when I go on a trip.  Lately, though, I have noticed that I seem to have books everywhere.  Books two rows deep on my bookshelves.  Books on the floor by my bed.  Books IN my bed when I fall asleep reading them.  Books in the family room by my chair and in the living room by my computer and...you get the picture.  I have a theory that there is no such thing as too many books, just not enough bookshelves, but I was starting to push the limits of that theory!  I realized I might have a serious problem.  I started to feel better when a friend of mine told me a book addiction wasn’t a serious problem until you started using your books for furniture.  I was pretty happy that I’m not that far along in my addiction.  Then she said that also meant stacking books by the bed and using them for a night stand.  Definitely guilty of that one!

Deciding to do something about the abundance of books in my home, I took all the books that don’t fit on a bookshelf and put them in one spot.  This is when I realized how serious my book addiction really is!

You might not be able to tell in the picture, but the highest part of this stack is 3 books deep!

These are the books that DO fit in the shelves.  

Cookbooks and several folders of recipes 

Even if I never use all of these recipes, I have fun reading the cookbooks!

In this last picture, the small bookshelf only has one shelf of books. The others are full of movies. Even with those two shelves of movies taken out, I have a LOT of books!

The Plan:  Since about 5 of my bookshelves are full of children’s and youth books and my children are grown, I am going to give away some of those books.  I will keep the ones my nieces and nephews like to read when they are her and the ones I want to read with my grandchildren one of these days.  (This is where the Simplify My Life part comes in.)

My book acquisitions have been slowing down, which has not been easy for me.   If you look at the top of this blog, two of the things on my list are book festivals!  How do you go to a book festival and walk away without buying any books? I was proud of myself that I managed to keep my book buying to a minimum.

The Southwest Festival of the Written Word in Silver City, New Mexico is a smaller book festival celebrating Southwest authors--both those from the Southwest and those writing about the Southwest.  I almost didn’t go because I would be going by myself, but I am really glad I went.  The largest author session I attended was about 30-40 people.  All the others 25 or fewer people, so it made it very easy to visit with the author afterward if you wanted--and I did.  The workshops were scattered around historic downtown Silver City, and I did a lot of walking.  I have only been to Silver City a couple of times as an adult, so I was really glad I had my maps!  

My two favorite sessions were the writing workshop with Stella Pope Duarte and the writing about cooking session with two authors, Carolyn Niethammer and Rob Connoley.  Both of those sessions were held in a Quaker church.  I had never been in a Quaker church, so my day was filled with new adventures!  

Stella Pope Duarte talked about using your life experiences in your writing.  She took us through a few scenarios to get our creativity flowing.  She asked us to think of our childhood car.  Who rode in the car?  Where did we go?  Who did we go see?  She then told us to use some of those experiences and that emotions in our writing.  She was talking about fiction, but I immediately thought about applications for writing my life story.  I could write a ton of stories about our old tan van!

The two cookbook authors were very interesting.  They had not met each other before, but both of them write about using native plants in recipes.  Carolyn Niethammer first started publishing in the 70’s and she has been credited with the beginning of the movement to cook with native plants.  Rob Connoley owns a restaurant in Silver City, but the cookbook he has coming out this year is his first book.  I found it very interesting, though, that both of them had the same mentor in Silver City when they were learning about native plants in that area!  

I had a wonderful time at this festival, and am planning to go again next year.  I liked it so much, I have told one author about it and will be telling another actor about it over the summer.  Maybe I will see them there in October!

The Tucson Festival of Books is done on a much larger scale.  Although it was only two days long, there were over 350 authors in attendance, along with a LOT of people.  One news story I saw said that, in the past, about 100,000 people have attended!  That is a very large crowd, especially for someone who lives in a town of less than 1000 people!

In Tucson, there were several events where authors were speaking.  Since I was only going to be there for one day, I decided to just wander among the hundreds of tents and see what they had to offer.  I got to the site of the festival about an hour before it officially began and started wandering.  I had two limits on book-buying.  First, I couldn’t go over my budget.  Second, I couldn’t buy more books than I was willing to carry around the festival for the rest of the day!  Since my car was almost a half mile away, this was definitely something I needed to think about as I was buying books!

One of my favorite parts of the Tucson festival was being able to stop and talk to random authors about their books.  I liked to ask them to tell me about their books, then ask them which book was their favorite and why it was their favorite.  I liked to see their faces light up when they talked about their work.  

Two of the books I bought were completely spontaneous purchases.  I had stopped by a tent to sit for a few minutes and to listen to the authors talking about their books while I rested.  I enjoyed listening to the authors so much that I had to buy their books--and then have them autographed, of course!

Danielle Paige wrote the Dorothy Must Die series.

Rae Carson wrote The Girl of Fire and Thorns

At the end of the day, I finally got to the main reason I went to the festival--meeting one of my favorite authors, Margaret Peterson Haddix.  She writes for young adults, and I have liked her books for several years.  I was very happy to meet her, tell her how much my students have liked her books, and get her autograph on two books I bought!   

I am looking forward to attending both of these book festivals again!

Las Vegas!

After this adventure, I checked several things off my midlife crisis list!  

#14  Go to Las Vegas

#31  Visit a state I have never been to

#34 Visit all the LDS temples in Nevada (I did half of this one.)   (https://www.mormon.org/faq/topic/temples has more information about LDS temples.)

#60  Go to a town I have never been to

#68  Road trip with a friend

Several years ago, I was in Orlando, Florida and found out there was a store called M&Ms World.  Awesome!  When I went into the store, I found out that there were only two of them in the world.  The other one was in Las Vegas.  I decided that I would get to the store in Las Vegas one of these days. (By the way, there are more than two stores now.)

Last year, I found out that there was a church single adult conference in Las Vegas on Valentine’s Day, and it just cracked me up.  My first thought was that you could find your soulmate and get married, then if it didn’t work out, you could get divorced, all in one weekend!!  In their defense, they have been having a single’s conference every President’s Day weekend for the last 40 years, and sometimes that just happens to be on Valentine’s Day, but it still made me laugh.

The more I thought about it, the more I decided I wanted to go to Vegas this year. I could go to the conference, the temple, and the M&M store.

I had a friend, Melanie, all set to go with me, and she wanted to find a Las Vegas Elvis. We were pretty sure we could find one while we were there.

At the last minute, disaster struck! ALL of Melanie's kids got sick! Not fun!! There was no way she was going to leave them for a weekend, and there is no way I would ask her to leave them! A few days earlier, my friend, Pam, had told me to call if everyone cancelled on me and I needed someone to go with me, so I called her at 3:00 on Thursday afternoon, and we left for Vegas about three hours later. Whew!

I have known Pam for a long time, but we haven’t spent time together except for work.  I had no idea what I was getting myself into!  We had so much fun!!!  I had already packed a box with snacks and books on CD for the 10 hour drive, but we never needed the CDs.  We talked the entire trip up and back and still weren’t talked out.  I did joke, though, that I had no idea I was traveling with someone who documented her life on Facebook!   I was part of more selfies than I thought was possible on one trip, and I loved every minute of it!

Thank you to Pam for letting me use some of the pictures she took. She is a much better photographer than I am!

First selfie of the trip!

Heading into a new state!  

First look at the Las Vegas temple.  I wasn't sure this was really it!  

Up close, it is beautiful!

And, of course, a selfie!

One last temple picture.

Next stop, the Excalibur hotel, our home for the next few days.  

After supper, M&M's World was next.  

My favorite--the wall of M&Ms.  It doesn't look as impressive here because I couldn't get the whole thing in one picture--It took about 5 pictures to see the whole thing....

...and you can see how tall it is when you see the people right by it.

The craziest thing I did in Vegas that weekend!  I got this picture for Melanie.  The cute thing about this is that he introduced his real self before he kissed my cheek. 

As you can see, Day 1 was a huge success.  We had a ton of fun!  I didn't get pictures from Day 2 because I spent most of the day at the conference.  The speakers were very good and I met some nice people.  By late afternoon, though, the long drive, the traffic and the crowds were starting to get to me, so I headed back to the hotel.  I am glad I did because the parking lots were full!  I had to drive around for about a half hour just to find a parking spot.  If I had gotten there too much later, it would have been worse.  

On Sunday, Valentine's Day, we went to church in Paradise!  How cool is that?  I also took my first taxi ride because the parking lot was still packed and I didn't want to give up my parking spot!

Sunday afternoon, I went back to the conference.  I got to hear two people I have admired for a long time, Richard Eyre, who, with his wife, Linda, has written several books about teaching children, and John Bytheway, who writes for and speaks to teenagers. If there was time, I was planning on getting a picture with them, but both of them had to leave immediately after they spoke to catch a plane!

On Monday morning, we headed back home.  One last selfie--we had seen this scenic overlook on our way up to Nevada and said we would stop on the way home.  It wasn't quite as impressive on the way home.  The light was great on Friday, and not so great on Monday.  

Conclusion:  I would love to go back to Vegas, but not on a holiday weekend.  I would enjoy going to a show and exploring a bit more.  I would definitely recommend Pam as a travel buddy.  We had a really good time, and have started planning our next adventure......

Midlife Crisis list #25   Be a tourist in Arizona:  My Yuma adventure!

My son, Garrett is living in North Carolina.  In September and October, though, he did get to go to Yuma, Arizona for a training.  When my daughter, Jessica, and I found out he was going to be only 6 hours from home, we immediately started planning a trip to Yuma!  We knew Garrett would not be able to get some time off, but, like I told him, my plan was to hang out in Yuma until he got off work, then spend as much time with him as he had before he had to go back home.  Since we were going to have a few days to spend in Yuma, I started looking for things to do.  

Our fun started on our drive to Yuma.  Who knew there was a Dateland in Arizona?  Since Jessica and I are both single, we stopped, but, unfortunately--or maybe fortunately, the only dates they had were the kind that grow on trees.  

Our first tourist attraction was the Yuma Quartermaster Depot.  In territorial days, this was used by the Army to store and distribute supplies to Army bases throughout Arizona and to parts of Nevada, Utah, New Mexico and Texas.  As we started looking at buildings and reading the information that was posted in the various rooms, I noticed several quotes by Martha Summerhayes.  That name sounded familiar, and suddenly I remembered where I knew that name.  Several years ago, my mom recommended a book to me, Vanished Arizona.  One of my brothers had recommended the book to her after he had to read it for a college class.  It was written by Martha Summerhayes, an Army wife, and it was about Army life in Arizona’s territorial days.  These were quotes from her book!  I have wanted to buy that book since then, but I had just put it on my list of books I want to buy.  (Don’t be surprised that it is still on my list.  It is a very, very long list!)  When we finished walking through the grounds, I looked for the book in the gift store, but they were out!  

On day 2, we visited the Yuma Territorial Prison.  We knew we needed to see the Prison because of a sentence on their website. http://azstateparks.com/Parks/YUTE/facilities.html  “A picnic area located above the river with a view of California is a nice spot for lunch.”  That just made me laugh!  We had to have a picnic there!  

It was an interesting view! California is on the other side of the bridge--not the one in front, the silver one in the background!

Our view did not improve as we sat and ate.

The Yuma Territorial Prison was very interesting.  Although the inmates in the prison called it a horrible place, the citizens of Yuma called it a Country Club. The prison was the first place in the area to have electricity.  In fact, they sold electricity to the town of Yuma.  They also had a forced air ventilation system and a very large library, the largest in the Arizona territory at the time.  Inmates could go to school and many of them learned to read and write while they were there. I liked that the water tank was underneath one of the guard towers.  In the very hot summer, the tower kept the water tank shaded so the water did not evaporate as quickly.  

They also had a unique way of taking mug shots at the prison.  They were taken beside a mirror so they got the front and side view at the same time.  Jessica and I had fun with our own mug shots.  I am pretty sure we wouldn’t be smiling so much if it were a real mug shot!

Of course, it was still a prison, and, by today’s standards, extremely small.  There were 6 bunks to a small cell and if an inmate got into trouble, they got to wear a ball and chain or were sent to the dark room, a small cell in a room with very little light.

Jessica and I especially liked the information we read about some of the inmates.  For example, there was the man who was in prison for embezzling money.  When he was in prison, he showed such an aptitude for math that he was put in charge of the inmates’ accounts while he was there.  After he left, it was found that he had embezzled money from the inmates!  There was also the 16-year-old girl whose brother told her she was dancing inappropriately.  When she refused to stop, he told her she might as well just kill him---so she did.  Then there was the man who was sentenced in northern Arizona, but wasn’t a flight risk, so they just handed him a train ticket to Yuma and told to go to prison!

When we got to the gift shop on our way out, guess what book they had--Vanished Arizona!  So, I bought it.  (In another blog, I am going to have to talk about my book addiction.  I even have a book dealer--he introduced me to a new author by giving me one book.  Now I am hooked and have to have more!)  I also found the book Roxaboxen by Alice McLerran.  It is a picture book about a real group of children who created their own little town on a hill in Yuma.  Jessica remembered that book from when she was in third grade.  That was the year she attended a brand new school.  It was so new the playground equipment hadn’t been delivered and set up yet.  The teachers read Roxaboxen to their students, then let the kids loose in a rock-filled playground.  The kids had a blast!  They created all kinds of things with rocks.  When the playground equipment was finally installed, Jessica remembers the teachers asking the students to please play on the equipment. People were coming to see the new school, and as administrators and school board members showed them around, everyone noticed that none of the students were playing on the brand new equipment.  They were all playing with rocks!  

So, I now have two more books!

Since my main reason to be in Arizona was to see my son, I didn't mind that we only had time to see two tourist attractions. Maybe one day I will get back to see some more of the attractions on my list, but the two we chose were definitely worth the time!

My goal for this blog is to post at least once a month this year. Check back at the end of next month to see how I accomplish three or four items on my midlife crisis list with one adventure!

Midlife Crisis List #7 Try new recipes

This doesn't start out as new recipes, but hang in there--it finally comes around to that!

One thing I like to do is have children help me cook. It is usually messy and noisy and crazy fun!

When I was teaching a Primary class at church, I would invite my class over to my house at least twice a year for a party.  The favorite menu for those parties was individual pizza and sugar cookies

The format for most of the parties I had was the same.  The kids would arrive and I would start them on their pizzas.  Most of the time, I used English muffins for the crust.  The muffins are easy to use and are sturdy bases for pizza.  The only problem with them is that they are not big enough. Even if you use miniature pepperoni--which I think is just adorable--you can’t fit many toppings on an English muffin.  I have started to experiment with using 6-inch flour tortillas as the crust, and it seems to work well--it is large enough to hold more toppings, but still small enough for a child to eat.  One benefit of using English muffins or tortillas is that when the cheese is melted, the pizzas are done and you don’t have to worry about making sure a crust is completely cooked. That only takes about 12-15 minutes, so they don't have to wait too long to eat.

It was fun to watch the kids create their pizzas.  For a party, I would have the toppings already cut up and in bowls with serving spoons in them.  The kids would spoon the toppings they wanted onto a plate, then put together their pizza.  After the toppings were on their plate, I didn’t have to worry about them licking their fingers.  If they wanted more toppings, I could easily give them more.   Some of them were very careful and precise.  Some of them just dumped toppings onto the crust.  They all enjoyed eating the extra toppings on their plate.  As they finished a pizza, I would put it on a cookie sheet.  Putting parchment paper on the cookie sheet helps with clean-up, and, as an added bonus, you can write the name of the child next to their pizza so you don’t forget whose it is!  As soon as everyone has their first pizza complete, I put that batch in the oven.  For the first batch, I try to make sure each child has a pizza in the oven so they can all start eating at the same time!

While the pizzas were cooking, we would decorate cookies.  Since I love to bake, I briefly considered making sugar cookies for all of them, but then reality won and I bought a few dozen cookies at a bakery in one of the grocery stores.  The plus side of that is that the bakeries have different kinds of cookies that are round and flat, so the kids have a variety of cookies to decorate.  I have used sugar cookies, snicker-doodles, peanut butter cookies, and chocolate chip cookies.  All of them decorate well. I do make my own frosting, though.  It isn’t hard, doesn’t take much time, and tastes much, much better than store-bought frosting!  If I am running short on time, I can easily whip this up while the kids are making their pizzas.

Frosting

1 cube butter or margarine, softened

1-2 tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon vanilla or other flavoring

1 pound powdered sugar (or more)

Beat butter or margarine until smooth.  Add about a cup of powdered sugar and beat slowly until mixed well.  Beat in milk and vanilla.  Add rest of powdered sugar and beat until smooth and easy to spread.  If it is too thick, add a little bit of milk.  If it is too thin, add a little more powdered sugar.  For chocolate frosting, replace 1/4 cup of powdered sugar with 1/4 cup baking cocoa.  

*I usually use margarine for this--it is what I have on hand and it tastes good.  If you are more picky about frosting, use butter.  

I also briefly considered using different colors of frosting and putting it in frosting bags and letting the kids have even more fun, but decided to keep it more simple.  For some people, getting decorator bags and tips together  then filling the bags with frosting is fairly easy and quick, but it is not something I do on a regular basis, so it was more of a chore for me. What I use instead tends to be pretty messy, but very easy to prep.  I let them use sprinkles.  I know ahead of time that I will be cleaning sprinkles up from my floor for a few weeks after that--there are always some that escape the broom--but I love handing a child a jar of sprinkles and watching them work!  Again, some children just dump them on the frosting, but others are very careful and precise.  I like to have a variety of colors and shapes available.  That just makes the process more fun!  Some children like to put every single type of sprinkle on each and every cookie.  Others plan carefully and just use a few for their entire plate of cookies. Cupcakes are just as much fun as cookies, but I usually make those, so it gives the kids an opportunity to use a mixer, which adds to the fun!

Christmas Cupcakes

Sometimes, kids are concerned about the messes that are being made in my kitchen.  At one birthday party, one of my daughter’s friends came to me and let me know there was flour on my floor.  Another time, a child informed a parent about the mess that was made at my house.  My reply is always the same, “If I was worried about messes, I would not have invited you over to cook at my house!”  Messy kitchen can be cleaned.  The memories created while creating that mess is worth every minute of clean-up.

Over the summer, I found a new recipe.  I was at a friend’s house for supper and she made Pizza Casserole.  As soon as I tasted it, I knew I needed the recipe!  It was delicious!  When I asked for it, she told me just to google it.  The recipe I found was at this blog: http://www.closetcooking.com/2013/03/pepperoni-pizza-casserole.html

I really like this man’s blog and would like to make more of his recipes.  The fun parts of the Pizza Casserole recipe are that all of the toppings go in the sauce, and the cheeses are a lot of fun to mix together!  At first, I mixed them in a bowl, but then I realized kids could mush them together in a gallon plastic bag. I ended up inviting several families (at different times) over to make this casserole. With it, we made a very easy pudding pie. Then I sent the casserole and pie home with the kids for their families. 

Pudding Pie

1 graham cracker crust

1 small package pudding mix, any flavor

1 1/2 cups milk

8 ounces whipped topping

Mix pudding mix and milk.  Fold in whipped topping.  Spoon into graham cracker crust.  Chill for a few hours to set.  

 

Cutting olives and mixing cheese!

I am still adding to my list of recipes to make with children.  By the time I have grandchildren of my own, I should have a large file of recipes to make with them!