Last week the Phelps Sisters took our annual getaway trip. This year Kathy found some cheap flights to Phoenix, so we all booked them within an hour. We left on a Monday and came back on a Friday evening. Karen made a nice write-up about our fun time there. I love all of the details she puts in. This is all in her words....
Seven of us sisters started out to go on this trip. We got roundtrip tickets for a nice cheap price--and set up lodging in a big 5 bedroom house in Gilbert, Arizona, and arranged for car rental on a couple vehicles. The only ones not planning to accompany us, were Lar, who’s serving a mission with Brent in Tucson, and Robin who is still not feeling very well. On the morning we were to depart, Kathy was all packed and ready, but decided she should stay and help Chris’s wife Sorine take care of the two boys cause Sorine had been having problems during her pregnancy. So the six of us who actually went on the Sister’s Trip this year were Janell, DeeAnn, Janis, Darla, Ruth, and Karen.
We settled in and made it to Phoenix in good time and had another big delay in getting the car from Enterprise. The car from Alamo was a cinch, so the three that went in that car—the minivan, made it to the agreed-upon Olive Garden in good timing and just sat and waited till the other three made it there. The lunch at the Olive Garden was great, and we all sat and relaxed and enjoyed ourselves and felt excited to think that we were truly THERE!
Check-in time for our rental house was 4:00 p.m., so we arrived there a little after four and found a fellow scurrying around there, trying to clean up some of the last-minute stuff. He left a few things in a mess, though, so Darla was on the phone till after 7:00, trying to get things arranged for either a different house or a cleaning crew to come in and fix things cleaner. We settled on just staying there and having a cleaning person come in; so he came in the next morning and tried to spiffy things up a bit.
We headed out to Walmart rather late that evening and each of us bought lots of goodies to stock the fridge and cupboards with. We came back and ate some of the snacky items we had purchased, rather than sit down and eat a real dinner.
We put in a movie to watch and it wasn’t very good, so we put in another movie and it was really good. Some of us left at the beginning of that movie because we had seen it before, so we went on to bed. DeeAnn couldn’t sleep very well as the night went along, so she got up and took a big, long soaky bath. I don’t know how the rest of you all slept, but the night passed, and we woke up the next morning bright and early because the cleaners were going to come.
Tuesday morning the “cleaners” didn’t come—just a single cleaning guy came and he did the cleaning by himself. All six of us left around 11:30 and started out our adventures after a nice morning prayer. We drove to the Japanese Friendship Garden which was about a half hour away from our place. DeeAnn paid for everyone’s entrance into the Garden and even lined up a wheelchair for me to use as a walker, which I pushed all over the Japanese gardens and really appreciated! We enjoyed the beauty there and took several pictures, and the day was sunny and warm and we had a good time.
When we left the Japanese Gardens, we headed for Heritage Square over in Phoenix, and drove around trying to find it for quite some time—then decided to eat lunch first and find it later. There was a beautiful older mansion house there that’s usually open to the public, but it was closed at this time—due to the Covid. There were other things around the square of interest, so Darla, Janis, and Janell explored the area while DeeAnn, Ruth, and Karen sat in the car and rested. The others came back and showed us pictures, though, so that way we didn’t miss out on too much! π (Darla even used Janell’s knee to climb a tree for them to have a special photo op….) π
We ended up finding a nice place downtown to have our lunch. It was a place called Mancuso’s and served delicious Italian food, steak, and seafood. We were about the only customers in the whole place, and we chose to sit outside in a nice shaded table. Our waitress was very charming and helpful and she took nice pictures of us. We had put money in a parking meter and only had 1 ½ hours for our dining experience, but it worked out well, and Janell hurried off and brought our car to pick us up.
By the way—we REALLY REALLY Appreciated Janell and Darla doing the driving for us! They were great and really found their way around places wonderfully well! We were SO thankful to have them drive us everywhere!
After finishing at Heritage Square, we drove across Phoenix out to Glendale so that we could see the Phoenix Temple. It was really beautiful, and we sat on the temple grounds for a nice long time—watching a wedding party and taking pictures. We asked one of the gals from the wedding party to take a picture of all six of us, and that worked out well. As we headed home, we decided we were ready for ice cream, so we found a Baskin-Robbins out by Gilbert where we were staying, and four of us got ice cream—Darla and Ruth refrained!
We came on back home and several went out to get in the hot tub—Darla, Janell, and DeeAnn. Actually they tried to get in, but it was absolutely so HOT that they barely managed to get their feet and legs in the water while sitting on the rim. It was a very Small hot-tub, and it didn’t work the next nights we were there, so the six of us never tried getting in at once. I went out and talked with them just for fun while they were sitting there, and the night was really warm and nice. They had a good time—heating up their feet and legs, but we were never able to get in the cute pool that was there in the back yard. It was just too dirty.
After showers, most of us got ready for bed and sat down to play a few games. They were fun games and we mostly had to all learn the rules before playing. We got finished about 10:30 and everyone headed to bed. It had been a very nice day.
Wednesday DeeAnn sprayed off the area surrounding the pool so she could lay out and feel better about being in what had been the dirty setting around the pool. Janis and I went for a little walk on the trail behind our house, near the park, and it was fun to see lemons and oranges growing on trees in most of the back yards we passed—including our own yard out behind the pool. Most days several of the sisters went for walks all by themselves or with each other. We were right by a nice park that had a huge walking trail all around it, and on the last day there, we found out that Janell had walked all the way around that walking path—way over by Robert’s office even!
On this morning, after getting ready for the day, we all prepared to head out to see and do things with our day, but DeeAnn and Ruth decided to stay home and just rest and enjoy the surroundings. (DeeAnn wanted to get some sun!) The other four of us left for the shopping mall way across town—it was called the Premium Outlets and we stayed there for just an hour and a half and got a few things—heading off separately in different directions. Janell was quite disappointed because she didn’t find any of the things she was looking for. I was surprised because I ended up getting quite a few things for Dennis at the Van Huesen store, and that was fun. Janis found some good bargains at Sax, and Darla was disappointed in trying to find some sandals, I think.
I want to make mention of this, because I actually felt like a wonderful little blessing had happened for me when we first got there to that mall. I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to walk very far or very long, and I didn’t know what I was going to do. When we first walked in to the shops, there was a small black shopping cart just parked up against a building from Sax Fifth Avenue’s shop. I asked a boy who was sitting there if he knew anything about it, and he said he thought it was just for people to use, so I started pushing it like as if it were a walker, and I used it and went everywhere I wanted to go—feeling just fine with the support it gave me. When we were all through and ready to go home, I just parked it back up next to the building where I had found it, and thanked Heavenly Father in a little prayer, for that wonderful blessing of making it so I could join everyone without causing problems.
We came back to the house after shopping and picked up DeeAnn and Ruth and all six of us headed over to The Cheesecake Factory Restaurant to have our lunch/supper. The food was delicious, and we had a nice table and a good waiter and had a really nice, nice time. We sat and visited and didn’t hurry off, but really enjoyed our beautiful setting. After that we headed over to the Gilbert Temple and by the time we got there, it was about too dark to take pictures. But we took a few anyway and just enjoyed seeing that lovely temple. (…sorry I use the word “nice” so much….) ☹
DeeAnn and Darla had talked about turning our smaller car back in so that we could get $103 back, so I rode in with DeeAnn and we took the car back to the car rental return place. We had rented two vehicles because we were expecting to have seven of us along, but with Kathy not joining us, we managed to all six travel just fine in the minivan. Darla drove the car we returned, so we all headed back home rather late and found that movies were just getting over so we mostly all headed off to bed. (We usually took time to talk with our husbands each evening, and that was fun and made them feel a little less lonely.) π
We made arrangements on Wednesday night to head to bed early so we could take off for Tucson rather early the next morning, so Thursday we headed out for Tucson, leaving here by 9:40. Janell drove us there, and Darla drove us back home. I need to mention that I had purchased juice, bacon, eggs, and bread for toast, and I full-well planned on getting up to fix breakfast for all my sisters, but never did doit!! I did fix eggs and toast for DeeAnn and me that morning, but I feel bad that I didn’t do anything very helpful for anyone for the most part…. ☹ (But everyone certainly did a lot to help ME!!) π
When we arrived in Tucson, we went straight to Brent and Lar’s apartment and found it just fine with their good directions. We went in and visited with them for about an hour or so, and enjoyed seeing their nice apartment and hearing about some of their experiences. While we were there a fellow member called and asked if we would come and visit with them—a brother and sister Hardy—so we did go to their house. They were a nice fun couple who have been married for 48 years. Their names were Mike and Philippa Hardy, and Philippa told us really fun stories—one right after another. They had some chickens in coops out back and they had a snazzy little race car thing that the husband had built. It was a 1929 Ford T-Bucket. They also had a big box of oranges they had just picked off their tree and they kindly let us have some of them.
After leaving their place, we rode with Brent and Lar in their van over across town to a Cheddar’s Restaurant, where we were seated in a nice back room and all had a fun little lunch together. Brent and Lar are on a strict diet that permits no dairy and no meat and no sugar, flour, and other stuff, so they found that they could eat good food there and stay on the diet. The food there was really delicious, and Janell paid for the meals for all of us…that was sure NICE!! We turned around and headed straight home after eating, but we had certainly had a nice time. We realized a bit later that we had plumb forgot to go past the Tucson temple.
After getting back home, we came in and talked for a few minutes with Ruth and Brad. Ruth had stayed home because she had a bad headache, and Brad had arrived about five minutes before we got there. He and Ruth were planning to take off on a long driving trip—going possibly all the way to Branson and maybe to Florida. They left to go get something to eat, then Brad brought Ruth back, and he himself stayed at a hotel that night.
We left the restaurant and turned in our car and checked in at the airport for our flight home. The wheelchair experience was not very eventful and the entrance to our departure gate was really close to the check-in gate, so we sat and relaxed awhile before it was time to depart. We all loaded on our plane and got good seats right at the front and sat there for nearly half an hour, waiting to take off. Pretty soon they announced that due to a slight technical problem, we had to de-plane and go get on another plane. We did that, but the whole process delayed us by more than an hour in arriving back in Salt Lake. Husbands were waiting for wives, and Janis and I headed on home to Blackfoot. All in all—we had had a wonderful time being together and enjoying each other’s company.
No comments:
Post a Comment