Arizona With Danny.....

Steve and I just recently returned from a trip to Arizona. My older brother, Danny lives there and it has been a long time since I have seen him. I was so happy when Howie said that we could take a trip to the sunny state of Arizona to visit with him. He lives in this apartment complex which use to be a motel. He was kind enough to let us stay there with him.

He has this motor home which he says is his "back up home" just in case he is ever out on the streets again. Pretty nice set up! It sure beats a tent out in the freezing weather!
He has a little dog named "Shasta" who is VERY old as well as both deaf and blind. Sad :(

Shasta and Danny have a very close relationship. Shasta has been a companion to Danny through some pretty tough times in his life. They were both homeless for several years together. It is sad to hear my brother tell of his stories of being out on the streets. Freezing weather, no food, no money. They just had each other.

I think we figured that Shasta was about 120 years old.

Danny took us to the Apache Creek Golf Club where he works

I loved seeing Danny at his place of employment....Everyone was so friendly and seemed so happy to see him there. You can tell the golfers all love Danny! This kind man, Everett even let me take a picture in his "golf-mobile"

There were some pretty AWESOME cactus plants.....

It has been so much fun hooking up with my "long lost" brother. He is a HUGE golf fanatic and so this job is perfect for him.
He does the maintenance on the course. Mows the greens, works with the sprinkler systems, plants trees etc. You can tell he takes great pride in his work. He spends so much time at the golf course that he has become very familiar with every plant, tree or weed. He has even named all of the pine trees in the entire golf course. Here we are standing by "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs". He has WAY TOO MUCH TIME ON HIS HANDS :) :) :) He is actually extremely funny and has a great personality. He had us laughing the entire time we were there.

We decided to take some games along with us for when we were hanging out at his home. Steve is all ready to play with his candy (which by the way is a MUST when we play games) in both hands. Let the games begin.....

We took Ashlee's Wii system with us and played for hours on it with him. Their favorite game was GOLF (Of course). Steve and I golf with just one hand usually. Danny was all about PROPER FORM! He did tell us that there is a customer that comes to his golf course and he only has one leg and one arm. So here is Howie trying out that style of golf. It actually worked pretty well for him.

He WON Danny in a game!

They had me take pictures to prove it is possible. Danny got better and better the more he played. He was unstoppable. If only it was that easy on the real golf course. It is sure a lot cheaper golfing this way. We golfed so many rounds that we would be BROKE right now had we been to a REAL golf course.

Steve also spent a lot of time playing Bejeweled on my new computer. It is a really addicting game and he is definitely hooked!




Danny had bought us some hockey tickets for a game against the Minnasota Wild team. He is a HUGE hockey fan and thought it would be fun to take us there. Which by the way....IT WAS TONS OF FUN!

He had come up with this idea of making this old Raggedy T-shirt into an official "Minnasota Wild" T-Shirt. He burned holes in in and dipped it into coffee to make it really stained and then ripped holes in it. It looked pretty nasty!

He had planned to roll it up and throw it in the audience when the mascott was throwing out T-shirts to the crowd.




He thought it would be hilarious to watch as people dove and fought over the T-shirt. Then we could watch their reaction when they opened it up and saw this OLD T-SHIRT for the opposing team. GREAT IDEA DANNY!

We headed for the stadium

It looked pretty awesome....

This was the drive strip just before you get to the stadium. I love the rows of palm trees that lined the street.
Danny was excited for us to be there and join him for this game. He was all decked out in his Phoenix Jersey. It was exciting to enter the outer court area and see all of the fans gathered waiting to enter the stadium. Go Phoenix Coyotes!!!

This area reminds me a bit of the Gateway in downtown Salt Lake City. They had these awesome water fountains, lots of shops, music playing and restaurants.

Posing with my brother....

Danny was sure happy to be there. He has season tickets and so he has made friends with everyone who sits around him.

He had told them about his T-shirt idea the previous week so they were all excited to see what he came up with.

He showed his shirt to all of is friends in the section as well as the security people in the area. He had one security lady who found out what he planned on doing and she told him that it was NOT allowed. She was very adamant about Danny NOT throwing it or he would have to LEAVE! WELL..... When the T-Shirt toss began, HE THREW IT ANYWAY!! Everyone was laughing and I was a little concerned about if Danny would even be able to watch the rest of the game with us or not. The lady went MARCHING off to get security backup!

I caught on video the man who actually caught the t-shirt. It just happened by luck that he was a MINNASOTA fan! He LOVED it. He instantly put it on and everyone around him was freaking out. What are the chances that a fan from that team would actually end up with the shirt.

Everyone around him was snapping pictures of it so I decided to go down and get his response on video. He said that it stunk so much that he wondered if it had been urinated on. I assured him it was just coffee stains-not pee stains.

After the game the guy came up to meet Danny...

He said that it was the greatest idea and that Danny had made his night. Everytime he put it on his team would score. IT WAS A GOOD LUCK CHARM!

The lady was unable to remove my brother because the other security people didn't think there was anything wrong with what he had done. Danny had to take this Minnasota fan over to her after the game to rub it in her face. She was standing there writing out an "incident report" and he was all over her. Okay....He reminds me a bit of my dad. Kind of embarrasing but extremely funny. So glad that he did NOT get booted out!

We had an enjoyable few days spent with Danny and Shasta. We wish he lived closer because he is a lot of fun to be with. Great sense of humor, kind heart and wonderful brother.

Here he is with Shasta just before we left. I am so sad that Shasta is getting so old. I am sure she won't last too much longer and when she dies I think Danny will be devastated. With him being so far away with no family around I worry about him. Losing a pet is just like losing a family member at times. Hopefully Shasta will hang in there a little longer. Danny loves her so much!

When we were getting ready to head off to the airport I started goofing off on these cement baracades. I was being a goon and pretending it was a balance beam for gymanastics.

I made an almost flawless dismount! Just one tiny step off the the side. Darn-it!

This video cracks me up so much. Howie begged me NOT to put it on this blog but NO WAY! This is why I love him so much. He is a HUGE goon just LIKE ME :) I was not sure what he was doing with his arms at the end before his dismount. BUT...he just explained to me last night what he was actually doing. There are some statues in Hawaii by the Hawaiian Hilton and he was imitating those guys. OKAY...IT ALL MAKES SENSE TO ME NOW! I thought it was some gymnastic move that he was trying to create! He is so funny!

Yep...We are soulmates thats for SURE!

Goodbye to Danny and Shasta. Thanks for opening your home up to us. We thoroughly enjoyed our stay. You made us feel so welcomed. We miss you Danny and love you so much!