Tyler & Ethan Visit Grammy in Arizona

When Tyler and Ethan had their Spring school break this year - my daughter Denise and her husband Gary flew the family down to Apache Junction, AZ to visit with us.
As this sign conveys - my grandkids are LOVE to me - this is a sculpture in the Old Town Scottsdale area where we visited.

One of the fun things Tyler and Ethan (and Cheryl) did while they were here was create great - Tie Dye - t-shirts with the help of our friend Mary.

















Cheryl's t-shirt will be yellow & orange. Ethan said "I want to do this!"


















Tyler was so serious in painting her t-shirt - while Ethan thought it was great to squirt the paint anywhere he wanted.


























Mom helped the kids now and then - but largely, they painted/created their own designs.

Here's a photo of all the colorful t-shirts with folks (and kids) that Mary helped in creating their Tie-Dye t-shirts.
One of the places that Tyler and Ethan enjoyed was our park pool. The weather during their vacation was nice and warm (hot at times) so the pool was a nice break to cool off.
Tyler had studied all about the Arizona Saguaros (also called cactus as some know them ). So she told her mom that she wanted to go into the Desert to see the Saguaros and other desert plant life.
Here's Tyler with one of the bigger Saguaros. They also saw a pretty big Saguaro in a little Ghostown near where we live called "Goldfield". This Saguaro had lots of arms - and Tyler knew that it took almost 100 years for a Saguaro to grow it's first arm. So this one is pretty old!



















The kids enjoyed our little Western town of Goldfield - even the Jail!
And we trapped them in the giant birdcage just for fun. Then we all went on a Wagon Ride through the desert so that Tyler could see all the different cactus and plant life .... our wagon driver was named Mindy she was great with the kids letting them ride in front and explained lots of things to them and even let Ethan wear her cowgirl hat.
Here's our little Cowgirl Tyler and Cowboy Ethan - cute cute cute!!!























We rode near the Superstition Mountains.

Ethan loved Rex - our horse and had no problem getting up close and personal with him.

After the wagon ride we had a refreshing ice cream cone on this warm day.

Mom Denise looks very cute as a cowgirl too.
Here the little cowpokes are sitting up front to hear the conductor on the train ride that we took through the desert.
On another day we took a river boat cruise on Canyon Lake - We cruised on the 'Dolly' which is a wonderful river boat captained by a skipper who talked all about the lakes here in Apache Junction. We have 3 -Canyon Lake, Saguaro Lake, and Roosevelt Lake all man made and fed by the Salt River.
You can barely see a motor boat cruising along the lake in this photo - so you can see how big the canyon walls are here on Canyon Lake.
This lake has lots of water sports - here you see Jet Ski riders - this is where we go kayaking.













This day it was over 85 degrees so the ride on the lake was nice and cooling for all of us.













There were plenty of seats inside the river boat but we liked sitting outdoors to enjoy the breeze and sunshine.
































On another day we went to Scottsdale to see "Native Trails" where Native American dancers did many of their traditional dances in full dress.











The music was wonderful and the drums were sometimes loud.





Tyler and Ethan loved riding in the Golf Cart that was loaned to us by our friend Val. We road all over the park visiting people and places - they took turns 'driving' with grammy or Cheryl.