Arizona was the perfect vacation. We had such a great relaxing time. Besides the Hot Air Balloon Fiesta and hiking Pennacle Peak, Brent and dad played a golf a few times and mom and I shopped some in Scottsdale and in a little town called Cave Creek. Tuesday night we went down to Scottsdale and watched Cole Uphaus play football! He had an amazing game with 2 touchdowns and some great tackles! He was awesome!!




He scored 12 points!




One of the times they played golf, mom and I rode along for 9 holes. It was so beautiful. Its not every day you get to play golf with the mountains as a background.

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On our last day there we took a trip to Bartlett Lake. It is a large lake in the middle of the desert inbetween mountains. It was a beautiful lake. One lady who worked there said the lake was down 50%.



Then we made our way to Cave Creek and ate at this burger place called Big Earls Eats. It is a restored gas station made into a burger joint. They have an area to eat outside where the origial gas pumps are still there with the price reading $.94 a gallion! This sign we are standing by says "We are not in Kansas anymore Toto!" We thought it was appropriate to have a picture!





The sunsets are beautiful in Arizona!



Friday night we went to watch Grant play football in the homecoming game. Grant was also on the homecoming court! It was fun to watch him tear it up on the football field!! We got a few pictures!

2,889 ft up on Pinnacle Peak

Tuesday morning, we went hiking up Pinnacle Peak with Chuck and Kathy! It was a beautiful hike. We were able to see several mountains and down into the valley! It was an amazing morning to hike because the weather was absolutely perfect. We hiked up about 1 mile just past the top of Pinnacle Peak and then hiked back down. My personal favorite was the guy dressed like Barry Manilow and the people that ran down the mountain with ski poles (sorry but no pics of this). We had a mixture of beautiful sights and had fun people watching along the way. Here are a few pics...

So Much Hot Air!!!

This past weekend, mom, dad, Brent and I were lucky to be able to attend the Albuquerque Hot Air Balloon Fiesta. I say lucky because the weather had been bad all week and Saturday was the first day since Monday that they were able to launch a mass ascension of several hundred balloons within a period of 30 to 45 minutes. We arrived at 5:30 in the morning and although there were a lot of people everywhere nothing was happening with the balloons. We happened to find ourselves standing beside one of the several balloons on the field that were licensed to fly at night. We were again, lucky enough, to witness them getting it assembled, setting up big fans to fill it with air and shape it before they fill it with hot air to launch. This one happened to the an Intel balloon. It and two others took off in the dark. One was a balloon with the American flag stars and stripes on it. Seeing them light up in the dark was pretty cool. They looked like big lightbulbs in the sky. Not long after the sun started coming up several balloon started to inflate around us. We were waiting to see if they were going to be able ascend that morning because of the wind and the mud. When they announced that the ok was given to ascend, there were suddenly balloons everywhere! We were surrounded by balloons of every shape and color. There were the normal balloons you always see but there were also tons of shapes and characters! Some were to big to ascend but stayed inflated most of the time. It was so hard to find a place to stand because balloons were going up all round us and there were so many people there. It was incredible to see all the balloons in the air with the mountains in the background. It was hard to decide what pictures to post on here. I took 220!! Its hard to capture the beauty. There comes a point when you just have to put the camera down and take it all in! It was such a fun morning and experience. Cold (41 degrees), but fun!!



It was mom and dads anniversary!



























My feet got so cold that I took off one pair of gloves and put them on my feet!!