Porch Concert at Friends

 Based on the success of our event, our friends hosted Vinyl Station on their front porch. Bobbins had a grand time chatting everyone up in the front yard.

Porch Concert

 To help our friend Matthew, who makes a living off music, we had him over to our front porch for a fund-raising concert. He basically lost his livelihood with the lockdown. This was a fun way to help him out and provide some much-needed socialization. It was pretty cool to have a rockstar playing live at our front door. It was pretty warm, but it's Arizona, what you gonna do.

Buddies Visit

My old college buddy Rek was in town to visit his sister, so brought Bre, Anthony, and Anna up to our house for Sunday BBQ. C came down from Surprise and Feather brought B and the girls. My mom & Coach were over too. We had a lot of fun playing in the backyard, then in the front, mostly baseball. Really good to see everyone and hang out.

Thanksgiving Morning Hike, Dinner at Uncle Jack's

We did our annual Thanksgiving morning hike at Dreamy Draw with friends. It was a large crew, of course. Mark and his fam joined us. We took Uncas, which wasn't too bad. Good to hang out with everyone.

Later we had a full dinner at my uncle's in Scottsdale with all of my family. We got a bunch of great photos which Dallas put into a hardcopy album. The food was fantastic (and plentiful). Aunt Susan and Uncle Jack did a presentation on their recent London trip. We played charades. We went for a long walk around the neighborhood. It  drizzled just a little. A wonderful Turkey Day.

August Birthday Bash at the Schaefers

Caroling

Continued our new tradition of having friends over in our front yard and driveway to eat chili, drink, and go caroling in the neighborhood. The photo at left is Edward and Francie.

Party with the Pearsons

Our friends had folks over to enjoy their renovation and backyard.

Rustler's Rooste Dinner

A few families got together for a dinner at Rustler's Rooste down in Ahwatukee. Bobbins ordered the rattlesnake and didn't think it was all that bad.

 

Cols Day Weekend at the Cabin

We didn't make it out camping this year on Columbus Day weekend. It started out with the Maggie's Run at Tempe Town Lake. It was just Kevin and I, no families, which wasn't as fun. I had forgot to pre-register us, so I missed out on an adult shirt but got a female for Bobbins. I ran the 10K in 53:14 to finish 18th out of 117.

From Tempe we picked up our families and headed north. He and I took some of the kids shooting, then had our annual wood chopping and fire by the garage.

We also packed everyone into one vehicle for a Bearizona visit. We had dinner in Williams and stayed the one night.

Happy Bday Minden

We came home from Williams to have dinner at The Yard on 7th Street in celebration of our friend Minden's birthday.

K-Dawg's Birthday

Bobbins and I got out for a night with the Schaefers to celebrate Kevin's birthday. We mostly talked about house stuff, babies, and how we needed to go camping this year (and didn't).

Zoo Day

Zoo Day with friends in July.

4th of July at Our House

Mostly hanging out, swimming and BBQ-ing, with Nana T & Pop as well as the Schaefers over. Fireworks show in the street at night.

Schaefer Memorial

Meanwhile, I took the kids up to the Schaefers one of the days of Memorial Day wkend to BBQ and shoot off some fireworks. We had a great time and, most importantly, got out of the house.

Batman Party

Booch got to go to a Batman-themed birthday party for one of his friends. He had a blast.

Marriage Encounter Picnic

One Saturday at Encanto Park Marriage Encounter had its annual picnic. S was in charge of photos, so we had to do a big back-drop and all, lugging it from the Sequoia to the picnic spot. D and I ran a spirited game of wiffle ball/kickball. Booch and Moose both got in on the action. Later, we had classic team games like fill the cup with spoons of water. It was a nice afternoon.

 

 

 

Supporting Erin

S and some other mom friends had brunch with Erin, who was about to have her third child.

 

Visit from Friends

Our old friends, the Agars, visited us the Sunday after Thanksgiving, as they were in town for the holiday and to scout out homes for sale. They are considering moving back to Phoenix. They brought over Zoe's after Mass and we had a great brunch catching up and playing. The two boys were already down for naps in this photo.

Cabin and Bearizona

Bobbins really wanted to go to Slide Rock this summer, so I took a Friday in early August off so we could venture up, the Schaefers joining us. That night and morning a huge storm rolled in, dumping tons of rain and flooding much of the state. We almost couldn't get to the Schaefers house. We decided to just hit the cabin and Bearizona instead. Thankfully, I-17 and -40 were passable.