05.07.2017: Budweiser Commercial Filming

 Tonight, Vince took Mom, Dad, Drake and I out to Coolidge to watch the filming of a Budweiser commercial that his company was working on.  They have been doing drops and filming both yesterday and today.  The premise of the commercial is that there are some Veterans driving around Razors out in the desert and a crate of Limited Edition Budweiser is dropped to them.  No idea of the specifics, but that is the basis of it all.  Vince's company was hired to do the precision air drop of the crates of the beer from a C130.  It was pretty awesome watching the setup of the crates, loading into the plane, and watching it come out of the plane and land exactly where they wanted it to.  We didn't get to see some of the ground filming with the Veterans because they film crew didn't want extra people in the shots.  So, we had to keep our distance for that part.  We did get to see the crates landing when they did the aerial filming.  One of the boxes took a tumble when it hit the ground (although it was exactly in the right spot), but the others landed feather soft right where they were supposed to.  It is pretty amazing that it is all controlled from a little tablet on the ground.

So glad that Mom & Dad got to come join in!  It made a late night for us all, but well worth it.  Last night the guys were all there until after midnight.  We left as soon as the drops were finished today!  Have to say, Vince has a pretty cool job!!! :)

 

 

05.01.2017: End of an Era



Coming up on the end of an era this year.  My parents are soon moving out of their place in Riverside that they have been in for 20 years.  We have benefited from many things, but one that will not be easily replaced is the abundance of avocados we get every year.  This is one of the last batches.  I'm not sure if you can see the little water marks on them. Those are my tears.....

 

03.31.2017: Social Butterfly

This morning I took Vince to the airport - on his way to Poland for a conference. I had a busy day planned for myself though!

 

This afternoon, I went to downtown Scottsdale to meet up with Ryan and Cheryl and their son, Zach.  It has been a while since I have hung out with these guys, and it was sooooo good catching up!  They were on a Spring Break roadtrip and took some time out of their busy schedule to come visit with me.  Such good memories with these kids :)

 

 

After Ryan & Cheryl left, I headed out to Mesa for dinner with Ray & Lois and Holly.  They are leaving tomorrow morning to head back to North Dakota for the year.  It is always sad to see them go and have gotten used to seeing them every few weeks.  Holly came out to drive back with them so they don't have to do it alone. It was good catching up with her too, since I was out of town when she was here earlier in the year.

03.07.2017: Lunching with the Greats

Woke up to a BEAUTIFUL morning here in Scottsdale.  Could not stay inside so decided to go for a walk/run to the lake.  It was about a half run, half walk.  It's been a while and I KNOW I am going to be sore in the morning!!  But it was awesome while it lasted.

 

Around noon, Ray & Lois and Bill & Doris came over to the house so we could all go to lunch.  They had never been to Scottsdale before.  Bill requested Mexican food so I took them to our favorite spot down in Old Town Scottsdale - Los Olivos.  They loved it.  We sat outside on their not too great patio, but the weather was perfect so we needed to be outside!  After lunch I took them on a little tour of Old Town, then back up to our house.  It was so good to see them all again!

03.04.2017: JBJ Round #2

What is better than seeing Bon Jovi in Vegas last weekend??  How about seeing him again in Phoenix the very next weekend??!

Yup, we did it.  We went to JBJ again in Phoenix tonight.  It was fun, as usual!  We started the day out with a late lunch with Ray & Lois.  Kenny & Kelsea came up from Oro Valley with Ken & Maryanne. We all met at the Macayos in Mesa - our old lunch spot!  It was the same as usual.  We celebrated Lois's birthday, which is tomorrow. 

After lunch-dinner with the relatives, we headed downtown for the concert.  We did some pre-concert drinking at the Copper Blues restaurant just around the corner, then headed in for the big show at the Talking Stick Arena.  It was similar to the Vegas show.  We were kinda bummed, because like last weekend there were no big screen monitors.  So the people in the nosebleeds (us) couldn't really see him at all.  The music was still great, but didn't get the same visual concert experience we are used to.  Other than that, it was a great show, again.  Seemed like he changed up the playlist a bit, but not by much.  And I even got a good video of Kenny playing some air maracas :)