With three of the kids either in or ready to go to College, it was a good time to move to a city with a great college. In 1982 Don, who was then working for Arctic Slope Regional Corporation,  took a leave of absence and the family went to Tempe, Arizona and bought a house.       They'd left Fairbanks on January 2nd with the temperature at 49 below zero, and arrived in Tempe where it was 75 degrees above zero.     Heaven!   

Todd making a "grass angel".

Todd had never lived where there was darkness and warmth at the same time and was astounded.    He had been born in Fairbanks where it is basically dark all winter and light all summer. 

The older boys had stayed in Alaska to complete the school year, but eventually joined the family.  Don continued to work in Fairbanks, commuting back and forth winters and the family would go back to Fairbanks in the summers to work for the baseball team. 

Wherever Don worked, he would come home on the weekends.   When the family moved to Arizona he worked two weeks in Alaska and came Outside for two weeks.      Sometimes he'd have a month at a time in Arizona.  His job was to keep the businesses running smoothly, and with good employees, he could do it from either end.    He must have logged a million miles on airplanes, but it gave him more quality time with the family than a lot of fathers had.

Thumbnails enlarge with a click!

While waiting the month for the house to close in Tempe, they first lived in former Goldpanner coach Ben Hines' apartment as he was out of town... then rented a temporary place as Don had to get back to Fairbanks.  A long month! 

Finally their house closed escrow and they could move in!   Who Loves Ya, Baby!

The family lived in the house on Cottonwood, Tempe,  from March 17, 1982 until July 1990. They added three more bedrooms to accommodate all the kid's friends who lived with them while going to college....and a few grownups who stayed a year or two.  Extremely fun years!!

Left:  Jim Turner, Teena and Leroy the Dog      Right: Steve, Don and Todd

In 1984, a banker in Fairbanks asked Don if Ann would like to sell four condos in Arizona they'd had to take back.   Sure...  and thus began several years as a Realtor.  Scott and Ann went to real estate school, became licensed and both worked in real estate but in different cities.   (Steve also went to real estate school in Denver).  The four condos turned into a complex of 154, plus all the other selling.    When real estate got so it completely ate up her life,  it was time for a change.                                                              

Ann and two friends went to America West's Airline School, and the three couples had an absolute blast taking advantage of free flying for a few years.  She also graduated from Tempe Citizen's Police Academy after a winter of training.
 
     ID Pictures          ...Ann

Practicing and studying in Az in February.

Scott graduated from college in Fairbanks; Steve completed his college in Hawaii; Teena got her Masters in Arizona, and Todd graduated from Bible College  in Indiana. 

Because they traveled so much and left the house vacant,  they decided to put bars on some of the most vulnerable windows.  The company installed them without enough cross bars for strength, and argued they were perfectly safe, when asked to take them down and reinforce them.      Mom (Ann) told them that if she could get through one within 5 minutes, then the job was free....  there would be no payment.    The company's owner looked at 110 lbs of determination climbing between the bars and ordered his men to remove and reinforce them.   sdd

Left:  Todd's Youth Group adopted the kids who lived at a garbage dump in Mexico.   They would gather clothing and food and go down about once a month for the weekend.   They had such  adventures!

Teena moved to Ann Arbor, Mi to go to school.  When she was done,  Karen and Ann drove her home and stopped in Memphis to see  Elvis's house.

 
Teena, always singing and
performing...her first love!

Scott was second to
get married.

Windows on the World was an elegant restaurant in NY City on floors 106 and 107 of the North Tower of the World Trade Center.  It operated between 1976 and Sept 11, 2001.

A favorite pastime in Phoenix during the kid's high school years, was the Dennis version of a "progressive dinner".

This "progressive dinner" usually included appetizers at Don Jose Restaurant on Guadalupe for their very special green chili quesadilla. The next stop was Grandy's Restaurant for what would pass as a salad before moving onto Bill Austin's BBQ for the main course. Dinner was topped off with a stop at the old-style Dairy Queen on Country Club Drive or Bill Johnson's on Apache Trail for deep dish apple pie ala-mode.   Sometimes Don would do them backwards....dessert first....

Don pulled a variation of this on the kids. On a very hot day in Phoenix the family was returning home from a long drive, and the kids were grousing that they were hungry. Don pulled into the first drive-in he saw and ordered ONE burger, and passed it to the back seat. Then he pulled into the next drive-in and ordered one more thing... this continued for miles, one thing at a time,  as they drove across town, and soon the back seat was full of food and the kids were begging for mercy.   Thank goodness for freezers!