July, 2025

For Rog’s birthday, we drove up to Tahoe City and spent a couple of hours sitting in our spot near the edge of the lake, watching the ducks and kayakers and just enjoying the view. When we got home, I BBQ’d a steak for him.

The next day, we spent some time with Max. Ryan joined us for a trip to IMAX to watch the F1 Movie. After dropping Ryan home, we headed to Don Quixote’s for dinner. The following week, we had a fun day with Karissa. We watched the movie Phantom of the Opera in the morning, then headed to Daphne's for lunch. When we got back, we watched Sound of Music.

On my birthday, the whole family had lunch at Ryan and Beth’s Max and Karissa had spent the day before decorating the place inside and out. Inside there was a collage with 75 pictures. We had a great time looking back over the years. Outside there was a birthday sign and lots and lots of balloons, some filled with glitter. As they floated on their tethers, the sun warmed them and would occasionally pop them. The weather was great and we enjoyed the early afternoon outside as the kids took advantage of the pool. Great day.

The weather has been superb! We had one day over 100 the entire month. We were usually in the 80’s and the nights were in the 60’s. Incredible. My project for the month was to redo the “stream” in the front yard. I dug up all of the black rock, cleaned them and then put them back in the stream bed. I also cleaned out all of the drains.

At the end of the month, we left for the Walsh family reunion in Garden City, Utah. We did the trip there in 2 days with an overnight in Winnemucca. I had made a couple of lasagnas for the first night dinner and we got to the VRBO about 5:30. Peg helped us get dinner on the table. The next day we headed into town to see “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” at the Pickleville Playhouse. What a fabulous show! Rog and I thoroughly enjoyed it. We hit the local milkshake shop on the way back. On Thursday, most of us went to the marina and relaxed on a pontoon boat that Jenny drove on Bear Lake for 3 hours. She treated us to sliders and chips before we headed back to shore. Beautiful weather and nice flat water….fun! Back to the house, Tom and Linda and their team served carbonara.

Friday was a relaxing day of conversation capped with twice baked potatoes that Jenny and Katie put together. Before bed, we cleaned up the place and got ready for departure the following morning. Rog and I left about 6:30 and decided to make the run in one day. We stopped every 2 hours and got home about 5:30. It was one of the best reunions we’ve had.