It was February once

We are happy.  Life is good.

Dallin lost his first tooth.  He is 7 1/2, so I guess my kids are late bloomers like Mark and I both were.  He was nervous about getting it pulled out so I gave him an apple to eat instead.  It was a Sunday morning and Mark was there to witness the event while I was in the shower.  Dallin tried to not bite down on the loose tooth but by mistake bit on his tooth and the trick worked--the tooth came nearly out and it just needed a little tug to get it free.  Anyway, this is the account Dallin told me after I got out of the shower that morning.  Actually, first I was greeted first with this:

My kids are awesome.

We bought a piano a couple of months ago.  This purchase has been long in coming, we had a little money set aside when we purchased our home 3 1/2 years ago and finally had the rest of the money to afford a piano now.  We really haven't been in a big hurry to buy because Mark has a nice, full-size keyboard that we use at home and he takes with him when he plays gigs.  We bought it from Craigslist and fortunately we happen to know an expert piano technician (Mark's dad) who helped us greatly in making this purchase.  I am not ashamed to say we prayed about this purchase.  It was a big purchase for us, and we knew we would probably have it for a long time.  This particular piano we saw listed online and we both liked it, but it was a couple thousand above our price range.  A couple of weeks went by and I was doing laundry and had the feeling that I needed to look on Craigslist to see the piano listings again.  The piano was posted again, at almost half the price.  Before I even called Mark I called his dad.  He happened to be out tuning pianos in Apache Junction where this one was for sale, and happened to have time to spare before he headed to his next appointment.  He called the seller and arranged to stop by right then and check out the piano for us.  With the expert's stamp of approval, we made arrangements to buy the piano and have a mover come pick it up for us before we even saw the piano in person.  Now it is here in our home and fits so perfectly that it looks like we decorated the house around this piano.  The piano reminds me that our Heavenly Father loves us enough to help us even with seemingly small things.

Do you like my decorating?  The artwork is "The Tree of Life" on the higher shelf and "Spy Glasses" on the lower shelf.

The boys have all enjoyed playing it and definitely play more often than they did when we just had a keyboard.  Dallin and Adam are in their second year of the Let's Play Music course and are really enjoying being able to play some simple songs.  Now that we have a piano in the front room they will sit down and play multiple times throughout the day.  Dallin has the dexterity of playing down, and Adam just has an ear for music.  Adam likes to sit down and pluck out songs and figure out how to play them.  Dallin tried to do the same thing and got really frustrated that he couldn't figure that out quite as easily as his brother.

Also in February, Dallin finished off his second season of soccer.  I was quite disappointed this season that the team he ended up on had their practices at a park not very close to home.  But I eventually got over it because we really liked the team and especially the coach and assistant coach.  Dallin has learned a lot and has especially become quite the defensive player.  He often plays as sweeper and does an awesome job keeping the ball away from the goal.  He also does a great job knowing where he needs to be, when to step in and clear the ball out, and when to hang back and stay closer to the goal.  We liked soccer this season so much that we signed up with the same team for the spring season, even though the baby is coming right at the end of the season in May.  

 

Happy February times all round.

9 Years and Counting

Our 9th anniversary came on February 28th.  We decided that since we have a baby on the way we should get out of town for a day while we can.  Mark's family all pitched in to help us make that possible by watching the boys, including getting Dallin to and from school.  We are grateful for them especially since they had already taken care of Dallin and Adam for two days a couple of weeks prior when Owen was in the hospital.  It was nice to get away and spend some time together.

The day before our anniversary I put this up in our bedroom to highlight our nine years.  The first picture is from one of our first dates.  I love looking at this and will keep it up for a long time.  It reminds me of what a great life we have.

(inspiration from here): 

Here's a closer shot: 

We decided we'd hit up the Arizona Salsa Trail for our anniversary trip.  Basically, it's a collection of Mexican restaurants in the Safford/Thatcher area.  They already had a great conglomeration of Mexican food there and so they made a gimmick out of it.  It worked, at least on us.

We left town late Monday afternoon on the 27th and headed to Miami, AZ for dinner.  Miami and Globe are not part of the salsa trail but they are also well-known for their bounty of authentic and tasty Mexican food.  First stop, Guayo's El Rey!

 

This spot is perhaps the most memorable for me.  But perhaps it's because the pregnant lady had to wait until after 7pm for dinner by the time we got there.  My food was great, and Mark enjoyed his.  He tried menudo for the first time and wasn't too impressed with that though.

 

 He also doesn't quite know what to do with himself when I try to take pictures of him eating.

After dinner, we continued our drive to Thatcher where we stayed for the night.  We stopped at the new Gila Valley Temple to catch a view of it.  

The next morning  we were off on the official salsa trail.  For breakfast we hit The Manor House in Safford where we split a meal of hash browns and chorizo. 

They even let us have some chips and salsa at 9am which was nice of them.  Next we stopped at a more fast-food kind of place called Taco Taste and just tried their chips and salsa.  Not our favorite.  Then we stopped at the Graham County Visitors' Bureau where we met a lady who was a very enthusiastic supporter of her county and was so bummed that we would only be there one day and we were not going to be able to see everything. 

  

We spent some time driving and enjoying the countryside.

There were a couple of spots on the Salsa Trail that we made besides restaurants.  One was the San Simon Chile Company.  We called ahead of time since it is off-season for their fire-roasted green chiles and we heard that we should make sure they would be open.  Turns out, it is a farmhouse with no business office or storefront and the lady told us to stop on by, she was painting her kitchen and would be home all day.  There were no green chiles for buying, but we got to sample some of her canned products and purchased a few sauces to take home.  Our next stop was one of my favorites, Mi Casa Tortilla Factory.  They make and sell fresh, preservative-free tortillas every morning.  We loaded up with 5 dozen each of corn and flour tortillas, a big bag of chips, as well as a few additional packs of tortillas to take to Mark's family who were watching our kids.  Now, a month later our tortillas are all gone and I am wishing we'd bought 2-3 times as many.  But, they did tell us that they are working towards online ordering so we have that to look forward to.

 

 For lunch we ate at La Paloma in Solomon, AZ.  We also stopped at a historic Catholic church and stepped in to look around. 

Many of the restaurants we went to had two different styles of salsas, and it was interesting to see all of the different styles of tortilla chips too.

We spent some time strolling around downtown Safford (that didn't take us very long), then we headed to Casa Manana for dessert.  We both ordered the fried ice cream to have alongside our chips and salsa and were very glad we did.  This stuff was awesome, but it did gross me out a bit because on the bottom of the dish was quite the pool of grease.  This is not the kind of food you want to eat very often, but it was sure delicious. 

 After lunch we had some down time so we went for a scenic drive up a mountain path.  We eventually parked the car, rolled down the windows, and decided to catch a little nap before our drive home.  We stopped for dinner on the way home in Globe at a famous little place called Libby's El Rey Cafe.  The food was really good, though the restaurant was dirty and a little questionable.  This is the kind of place that if it were in town we would never go there by the looks of it, but we had to stop and try it because it's kind of a legendary spot in Globe.  One of the reasons is they pour butter over their tortilla chips.  It was good, though I am still not convinced this extra level of fattiness is necessary to enjoying a serving of chips and salsa.  I am pretty sure Mark liked this place more than I did. 

By the end of the day my dinner consisted of just one taco and some rice and beans. 

Here's the outside view of the place.

We thought ahead and brought an ice chest with us and bought a few containers of our favorite salsas to take home for us and for Mark's family.  It was fun to get away just the two of us and of course was nice to get back to our boys.

Happy ninth to us.  It's been the best years of my life for sure.