Happy Easter!

Hope everyone had a great Easter. Mike had to work so I went to Benson. Keith, Sara and the kids came down Saturday night and stayed at my parents'. Dustin had to work so him and Monique did not make it either. We went out to Dragoon with a bunch of family friends and had a picnic and egg hunt. Just wanted to post a few pictures. Love taking pictures of Violet!



Violet and Nathan

Keith, Grandpa and Dad

Sara made some Kool-Aid for Violet with a bottle of water and a little packet of Kool-Aid. When Sara was mixing it Violet said, "That's why they call it Kool-Aid... 'cause it's cool!"

Sushi party

The Saturday after my birthday we went out with some of my friends and some of the people from Mike's work (my friends too I guess). We were originally going to go to a sushi place called RA, but when I called to make a reservation they promptly told me they don't take reservations, just "call ahead" and that they were totally booked for Saturday night. So, I figured everyone was already planning on sushi, so I made reservations at the Sushi Garden instead. I'm not a big fan of sushi (except california rolls, which don't really count) but knew they had cooked food too. Mike has also never had anything more "sushi" than California rolls. So, imagine my surprise when Mike went all out and tried some of the craziest things on the menu. I ordered a cooked meal, but Mike decided to split sushi with Scott. Scott ordered the first round of stuff, mostly regular fish, nothing too crazy. Then Mike ordered the next round. He ordered stuff with scallops, stuff with eel, Vegas rolls and some sweet shrimp rolls. Well, the sweet shrimp rolls come with a fried shrimp head on the side. And, Mike ate it! I was so proud of him for being so adventurous. Seeing him bite into a shrimp head was a little creepy though. Then later, I got dared to eat the shrimp's eye ball, and I did it. It was just gross and chewy. I also branched out and tried the dragon roll (with eel) and it was actually pretty good. And you can't go out for sushi without doing Sake Bombs. So, I made my friends do sake bombs (after all, I don't drink beer and it was my "birthday") while I had plenty of other yummy things to drink. We closed the place down and had a great time...as evidenced by the photos.

P.S. I'm doing well since my surgery on Monday. No bleeding (knock on wood) and surprisingly less pain than I expected. I was prepared for the worst after stories I had heard. But I'm taking tylenol now and doing okay, making a list of all the food I can't wait to eat again. Mike took very good care of me and I sent him back to work today since I am doing better than expected. And I'm going scrapbooking tomorrow night. I'm getting very bored of being home so it will be nice to get out and do something fun. Hope everyone has a good Easter. I think my family was going to go on a picnic but the weather isn't supposed to be very good this weekend so we'll see.
Mike's order of sushi: something with scallops (looks like roasted marshmallows), dragon roll (eel), sweet shrimp roll (with the shrimp heads by them) and the vegas rolls. No, he didn't eat it all by himself, he shared with Scott. And pretty much no one ate the scallop things.
Mike eating the nasty shrimp head...enough said.


Tab and Craig getting ready for Sake Bombs, with a little help from Luke.


Me and Eric trying the dragon roll (he was a sushi virgin, too.) Notice the fork - proper sushi eating utensils are a must!

Me, Hugh and Craig rocking out with our chop/drum sticks and various empty glasses.

Tab and Hugh doing a sake bomb.

Andrea and me trying some sake (minus the bomb)

My birthday present

For my birthday, Mike bought me a new digital camera. So far I love it. It seems to take great pictures and has a 10x optical zoom. Now, we just need to get an underwater case for it so we can take it diving. On my birthday, the weather was great and Mike said we could do whatever I wanted. So I chose to go to the zoo. A chance to enjoy the weather, try out my new camera, plus, I always love the zoo. That night we went out to dinner with my parents. We were going to go out with a bunch of people but Mike had to work the next day, so we went out on Saturday instead. More on that in my next post....

Just an update

Things are going well here. I started my 3 weeks off of work. This week I have off work just because but then next Monday I am getting my tonsils taken out and will have 2 weeks to recover. I'm not going to lie...I'm nervous. I've heard the pain is awful. I'm kind of a baby when it comes to pain. I don't like it. We're going to stock up the fridge and freezer with cool creamy stuff for me to eat. Right now I'm sick, so hoping to get better before Monday. Not really able to reschedule my 2 weeks off. Tomorrow is my birthday and we're going out to eat with my parents. Then Friday I'm going to ride along with Mike at work. Hopefully they'll get some cool calls. Then Saturday we are going to go out with some friends for my birthday. This past Friday I got some scrapbooking done with Kimberly and Saturday Mike and I went to Phoenix for the World Of Outlaws race. Hit the scrapbook store and Rosa's while we were up there. Hope everyone is well. I'll keep you updated on the surgery.

Gotta Love The Dunes

We went to the dunes for Rodeo weekend. We left on Wednesday so we got 3 full days and part of Sunday for riding. We did LOTS of riding and had a great time. The weather was great. Not too hot and just the right amount of breeze. We camped at Buttercup again because we ended up meeting up with some people who were already going there instead of Gordon's Well. The other people we went with rode quads, which was nice for me because it's much easier for me to follow quads instead of the dirt bikes. There were a couple of hiccups in the trip. Our friend Daniel wrecked on Saturday afternoon and broke his collar bone. Then on our last ride on Sunday Mike had a pretty bad wreck and got a concussion. He's still feeling the aftermath of the wreck, but is doing good. He got pretty lucky to get away with just a concussion and broken plastics on his dirtbike. On Saturday night our friend JC rode his street bike out from Tucson and stayed the night. Then Sunday we went for a ride to see what his street bike would do in the dunes. It did surprisingly well. But JC is such a good rider he could make anything handle the dunes. All in all it was a great weekend. Unfortunately it will probably be our last trip of the season. Usually we would go again for Easter but I'm getting my tonsils taken out the week before so we probably won't make it for Easter.

Our home for the weekend. Our camp is the circle in the middle of the picture. You can see our flags. We fly a Divers flag and the flag from the country of Montenegro (yes there really is a country named Montenegro) so that we can always distinguish our camp from all the others. Rodeo weekend is always nice because it's not super packed like other weekends. Thanksgiving weekend you probably wouldn't see any open spots between camps from this vantage point.

Our friend Daniel - before he broke his collar bone
Daniel again - he sure can ride a wheelie
Our friend JC brought out his street bike to see what it could do in the dunes
The VStrom tearing it up
Looking down on the group from up on Competition hill

Taking a breather

That little speck on top of the dune is Mike

Erik's rail in the bowl