A visit to YC's Mongolian Grill

While Carl's cousin, Jenice, and Gary were here, we made a visit to YC's Mongolian Grill...

You get a bowl and pack as much meat as possible into the bottom, then add vegetables and noodles...

... then take it to the chef to cook it. (This was Carl's being cooked.)

This was my piled-high bowl and separate bowl of sauce as I waited for the chef to be ready to cook mine.

You then get soup and rice (as much as you want) -- we like to get the "large" bowl for our ingredients, and then take home leftovers and rice for another meal.

Jenice and Gary in the restaurant

We all agreed that the re-heated leftovers were even better than the original as the flavors had more time to meld!

Block party

Our block (800 Douglas) at Venture Out has a block party about once a month. We missed the December one as it was scheduled during the time that Carl's daughters were visiting. The January one was hosted at "our" end of the block...

... and during the time when Carl's cousin, Jenice, and her husband, Gary, were visiting.

I photo-bombed Carl's picture!

Linda had arranged for the VO Glee Club to perform for our party!

We blocked off part of the street for our party.

We had a good turnout!

You may be able to tell that the party was held in front of our guest casa!

Getting together with Alaskan Caravan folks

We saw on Facebook that the wagon masters from our Fantasy Alaska Caravan were visiting in Apache Junction (the next town east from Mesa), so one of our fellow travelers worked it out for us to all get to meet for breakfast with them...

Ken and Judi were working as tail gunners on another caravan ---

It was great to get to see them again!

Another colonoscopy

I had written about my colonoscopy in November (https://journeyinamazinggrace.blogspot.com/2024/11/doctoring.html) -- I indicated then that Carl was to have his in about three weeks... well, that needed to be postponed, so he didn't have it until January...

This is the picture after the procedure was completed, when we were waiting for the doctor to come and tell us his results.

Since I had enjoyed going to Cracker Barrel after my colonoscopy, Carl also selected to go there after the procedure -- his was scheduled very early in the morning (so the doctor wasn't running late for his procedure!)...

... so we had breakfast!

It was very good!!!

Carl will need to have another in 5 years... but he is checked off until then!!!

A car in our community

Usually when I see interesting cars, they are outside our community in Mesa when we're out shopping or doing other things in Mesa, but this one was in our community...

It was relatively early in the morning...

... so the shadows and sun angles aren't great...

... pretty car!

I saw it as I was walking to my volunteer position at the activity office. One of my responsibilities there is to check the bulletin boards to see if any ads need to be removed... when I was looking at the bulletin board, I saw this for sale ad:

I don't think it is the same car -- for one thing, the car I saw was orange, not bright red, and I kind of think the one I saw would be older than 2006, but... I don't know!

It is nice to see older cars in such great shape here in Arizona where they don't get salt damage (but can certainly get sun damage!).

Happy 5th Anniversary to Us!!!

Many faithful readers will remember that we got married on a palindrome day back in 2020, specifically, oh-two-oh-two-two-oh-two-oh (or 02/02/2020) -- so today is our 5th(!!!) anniversary!

Readers and friends may also know that we've been celebrating "month"-versaries. Since we are now at 60 months, telling people that we've been married "sixty!" (and then quietly saying, "months") might seem odd as that would mean that we would have been 5 and 10 years old for our wedding day. So we're thinking that we need to stop celebrating month-versaries, at least in front of other people. I'm sure we will still celebrate for ourselves as we can't help but be thankful to God for every month that He gives us together!

If you want to see more about our wedding day, this was the first post on our Journey in God's Amazing Grace blog: https://journeyinamazinggrace.blogspot.com/2020/02/did-you-miss-palindrome-day.html

Thank you for reading along to celebrate with us!

Celebrating a birthday!

Our friend, Linda, celebrated her birthday in January, so friends Liz and Jerry hosted a happy hour and party on their lot...

Liz got the cake...

various appetizers

Liz's niece and her husband were visiting from Minnesota and enjoying the sunshine!

Don and birthday girl, Linda, along with their dog, Cooper

Always fun to celebrate friends!