1st decade of the century part 5

2005

January.....We welcomed in the new year in AZ. Rich's Daughter lives near Phoenix and my brother (Joe's) 3rd son lives 2 1/2 hours south east of Phoenix. His daughter had reservations made for dinner and a new years party at an old western town...(Rawhide Wild West Town????) The food was awesome and the band was good too. I took a day and drove down to see my nephew. He owns a shop there and couldn't just close up for my visit, so I hung out with him while he worked on front-end alignments. I took a drive up into the mountains after lunch and came back for another hour or so and had to head back towards Phoenix leaving a promise that I would drive back down on Sunday when the shop would be closed and we could really spend some time together. His daughter took us to a lodge for dinner on Saturday night that was up on a mountain side. it was all lit up with lights and just really nice. She tried real hard to make our visit a good one and did a good job of it. On Sunday Rich decided to ride down to Tim's with me....give his daughter a well deserved break from us.

Tim is 6 months older than me. When I spent my 2 weeks during the summer at Joe's, we would go down to the creek and catch craw daddies and tad poles and smoke. If Joe knew we were smoking, he would have had both our hides. This was when he lived in Southern IL. He moved to CA near my other brother to get away from the cold. His business didn't workout there, so he relocated to the town my nephew lives in. That didn't turn out any better so he headed to Phoenix. He did better there business wise, but that's where he was killed.

Back to our drive to Tim's....My mind tends to wonder when I think of Joe. We had a good visit with Tim....him and Rich had allot in common. Rich wanted to see Tombstone and Tucson so we left Tim's and headed to Tombstone. We got there about dinner time and found a place to eat. There was a woman sitting at the bar by herself and someone playing old western songs on the piano. We found a place at the bar and got into a conversation with the woman sitting there and it turned out she was married to the piano player and was waiting for him to get off work. They invited us to meet them where the locals hung out at Johnny Ringo's. We found a little motel to stay at and went to the local drug store to pick up toothbrush's, toothpaste, and a comb....we came unprepared to stay over night. We then met up with them and had a really good time. We always seem to meet the nicest people. Next morning we did some sight-seeing.

After looking around town a while, we stopped at the western shop where she worked and said our goodbyes and thanked her for the good time.We drove through Tucson and Yuma and then back to His Daughter's, bringing with us filets from the store for a cookout.

March.....My brother who is only 2 years older than me (the one on the Duo Glide with me and Joe) came out from AZ for a visit. It was good to spend some time with him. We did allot of visiting with family here.

April.....It took us till April to use the gift certificates I got everyone for Christmas....dinner and a murder mystery in Chicago. The guys....as usual, moaned and groaned and complained about it and they ended up enjoying it the most. Everyone had a little history about each of the characters and a script but didn't know what was on anyone else's script. We had to figure out who was the killer and who would die. They lined up all the suspects and the victim against the wall. This lady comes running up to my oldest son and shoots him with a cap gun. He looks at her like, what was that all about?? The lady who organized the mystery, tells him, you've been shot, DIE! He grabs his chest, falls back against the wall and slides down to the floor.

The same group that organized this one does a mystery on a train from Chicago to Milwaukee. Someday I would like to do that.

We also went to see my grand daughter in a school musical during April. There is something about school plays that is so cool. I guess you have to be a parent or grand parent to understand.

May.....A friend of ours called us and asked us if we wanted to go see B. B. King.....IN DALLAS/FT WORTH, TX!! Rich's reaction....Sure, no problem....My reaction....Are you nuts?? We got a limo to O'hare and flew out EARLY Saturday morning. They drive a heard of cattle down one of the main streets....at this point I don't remember why. Then we went to see a rodeo, had a really good steak dinner and headed to the show. The next morning we walked around town for a while and headed back to the airport....is that nuts or what? We did have a good time....no regrets!

June.....Another family reunion in PA. We took the car for this one....we got tired of always getting rain the whole trip and this was the only trip north we had sun the whole trip. This time we found more of my dad's family. The lady in the rocker is my cousin....you may remember that my dad was 63 when I was born...so...hence the age difference. I was named after her mom because I was born on her birthday....which was also Easter Sunday and my parents wedding anniversary. The other two ladies are cousins from my dad's other sister and the boy is John, he is son to the lady on the left. He is so sweet....he loves everyone.

July.....We did some more hot air balloon rides. By this time we were his official crew and Rich was learning to fly. This is what it looks like inside the balloon while it is being inflated. The next shot is our recovery team packing up equipment and getting ready to chase us....which usually includes me....the third shot is our town from the sky.

August.....We did a bike trip to Co. That will be a blog in it's self. Stay tuned!

Sept.....My son called and asked if I would take the kids for 5 days while they went to Cancun. For the most part, this would be cool. My youngest grand daughter at the time liked only mom, dad and the babysitter....she would not have any part of any one else, including me. I asked if it would be just the 2 oldest ones and he said, "no, it's a package deal." I agreed thinking that if Rich didn't like it, I would just stay at their house for the whole five days. I would be there for three any way since the two oldest kids had school. When I told Rich I agreed to do it, he said, "I'll take the two good ones and when the little ones head start spinning and green stuff comes out of her mouth, you're on your own.

Tuesday night....I head over right after work and pick them up from the sitter. The little one is not happy at all. I tried to make it fun but bedtime was hard. Wednesday comes and I got the two oldest ones off to school and dropped the youngest off at the babysitter then headed to work. When I dropped Julia at the sitter she looked sooooo sad. I promised I would be back right after work and she said; with a tear in her eye, "OK grandma, promise?" . I gave her one last hug and out the door I went. The last time I had that much trouble leaving a kid was her dad on his first day of school. I walked him to his classroom door and the whole way, he kept telling me he could do it himself. NOT A CHANCE!!!

On Friday, after I got them from school, we headed to our house to spend the rest of the weekend here. Julia again was not happy at the thought of being around Rich. She had finally gotten used to me, only because she knew I was the one taking care of her till mom and dad got back. Inside of an hour, they became best buds and she couldn't get enough of him. We went out to dinner at a wild west place and after dinner we went to the camp fire behind the restaurant and they had a great time. Saturday we took them out on the boat and put them on the tube. They had a blast. Sunday our town was having the town festival with parade, clowns, face painters, rides and more. Mom and dad came home at about dinner time, so we met them at a restaurant half way between us. Julia had fallen asleep in the back seat of the truck and when my son tried to wake her....she's a daddies girl....she looked at him and...since he was the one to leave her at the sitters on Tuesday morning....she said, "you left me" and headed for the drivers door where Rich was and she had to have Rich carry her in. Then she sees mom and it's all over for Rich. I was so worried about having all three of them and it was for nothing. I couldn't have asked for better behaved kids. It was a total pleasure. I'm not sure if me and Rich had more fun or if the kids had more fun.

Those were the highlights of 2005.