Steve and I drove to Mesa yesterday. Our first stop was to visit my sister Jerri. She lives in a part of Mesa that used to be just acres and acres of orange groves and many of the trees still exist amidst the homes and other development. And, the end of March is when orange trees blossom. So, as we were nearing Jerri's place, all of sudden, we smelled this amazing scent, even through our closed car windows and it was the fragrance of hundreds of blossoming orange trees. The crazy thing about citrus is that the trees will bloom even though there is still ripe fruit on the branches!
After a nice visit with Jerri - who is looking very good - we drove further east in Mesa (that city is just huge!) to the home of my cousin Neil Fraedrich and his wife Gloria. They are from Oregon and they still live there in the summer but, when Neil retired, they started coming to Arizona in the winter. Neil grew up in Phoenix. The first few years, they brought their 5th wheel and lived in one of the dozens of "snow bird" RV parks. However, last year, they decided to buy a small home. And, even though it is "older" (built in the 80's), it is really nice and it is in a very nice retirement community with all the amenities of a snow bird RV park (i.e. tons of activities every day). Neil's older brother Paul has also begun to winter in Arizona and he came over from his RV park to join us for a delicious lunch of grilled chicken kabobs. We had a very nice visit and we decided that Steve and I will just have to plan to make an Arizona trip most winters to visit all the family we have out here.
above: Paul, me, Neil. below, Gloria takes my place
Our last stop in Mesa was to drop off the forty-two draw string bags for Days for Girl that I had been working on these past six weeks and to pick up more sewing supplies to work on. Then, we had to high tail it back up to Anthem because I was to accompany my adult cello student, Nathan Coons, who was performing "Chanson Triste" at the annual stake Music in the Park. Unlike last year, when we had a steady rain throughout the entire event, this year had perfect weather.
I sat by the sister missionaries, Sisters Redford (l) and Windish (r)
Later last evening, Steve grilled pork steaks on our little make-shift barbeque set-up and we ate outside on the patio and then went inside and watched the "in-famous" "The Three Amigos". What a great Saturday.
As for the rest of the week, I helped pick up two more Toyota Tacoma trucks to make a total of six new trucks to be traded out with old Nissan Frontiers. We got our tax statement back from the accountant and we hardly have to pay a thing this year! That is a switch. We plan to buy a new computer and to replace the horrible speakers in our car with the money we have saved and will now not have to give to the government. Yay.
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