Spring Break in Arizona by iPhone

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Pre-flight libations.  

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Note the remaining time.  And this was about 6 hours into downloading Argo.  We still haven’t watched it.

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First stop in Arizona.  Naturally.

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Our rental car was a mini van.  Joey is now convinced that this will be his next car.

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Saturday night dinner.  Mushroom pizza, salad with a million croutons and beer.

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World Baseball Classic.  Italy vs. USA.  ‘Merica pulled out the win!

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Joey and his family take pickleball very seriously.

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Rockies Spring Training game with my friend and Arizona resident Zach.  The Rockies did not even care that it was my first Spring Training game and decided to lose. 

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Hiking in the desert.  

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See that rock in the very top right corner?  Yeah we climbed up there.

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Literally the happiest I’ve ever seen Joey look.

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Green Chili Chicken Burgers on the grill for Joey’s brother, cousin and grandparents.  Burgers were a hit, but we may or may not have burnt those brawts to a crisp.  Oops.

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Realized the Nuggets were also in town and paid $45 each to sit in the nosebleeds.  Fun!

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Intense Shuffleboard tournament.  I can’t wait to be retired. 

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First In-N-Out burger (I only got a chocolate shake on our first trip there).  Complete with fries and a Coke.  I was underwhelmed by the food but overjoyed at how much cleaner/more professional it was than any other fast food place I’ve ever been to.

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Till next time, AZ!

Labor Day Weekend Things

Ooooh, where to begin.  This three-day Labor Day weekend was a whirlwind of baseball, beer and balloons.  Yeah, you know what?  Those three words pretty much sum up my weekend.

I normally have a lot to say, but I think I’ll shut up and just show you instead.  Don’t worry, I can’t actually completely shut up, so I’ll add some explanation every now and then.

How great is this picture of my mom?

Immediately after drinking this margarita she felt sick and wasn’t sure why.  I asked what she ate all day and she replied with a cupcake and coffee for breakfast, french fries for lunch and a hot dog for dinner.  Huh, I’m not sure why either.

Here I am in my kitchen on Saturday morning, just brewing some beer in a 22 quart stockpot.

I feel like we have some weird science experiment going on in our apartment.  And in a way, I guess it kind of is.  I’ll let you know how it tastes in a few weeks, but for now, we’re pretty damn excited that it’s working like it’s supposed to.  Still baffles me that you can drink something that you’ve let sit out for a month, though.

Joey’s face as he loses our giant game of Jenga is priceless.

We spent Saturday in Colorado Springs, which to Joey means a chance to watch the Rockies’ Triple A team play.  I was okay with it since my favorite Rockies player is playing for them right now while he rehabs an injury from earlier in the season.

We definitely made eye contact at one point.  And my life was made.

Beer sampling at Phantom Canyon Brewing Company, which happened to be right across the street from our hotel.  Perfect.  Plus more beer, some amazing corn chowder and a giant salad.  I  thought I might never eat again.

Just singing to his beer.  Totally normal.

The real reason we were in the Springs was to go to the Colorado Balloon Classic.  It’s basically a weekend-long hot air balloon festival.  There’s morning and evening events, including the Balloon Glo, where all the balloons inflate and light up with fire.  It was definitely cool to see.  Those balloons are so much bigger when you’re standing next to them on the ground than they look up in the sky!

Let’s not talk about the 30 minute walk from the festival back to our hotel in the dark and how Joey claimed he saw a bullet hole in the window of a building.  And let’s really not talk about how we watched the news when we got back and there had been a shooting the night before on that same street.  I hope my mom isn’t reading this.

Up early the next morning to watch the “Grand Ascension.”

This is my “can you stop taking pictures of me while I have a mouth full of this sketchy carnival burrito?!” face.  Which Joey clearly finds hilarious.  I’m going to pretend everyone was sitting in the wet grass while bouncing back and forth between eating a burrito and feeling like they were going to throw up.  This is my life.

Now we’re home, uh, watching baseball.  How much baseball is too much baseball?  Our beer is fermenting away, laundry is in progress and we’re heading over to my brother’s for a little family BBQ-ing.  There will probably be more beer.

Happy Labor Day!

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What did you do with your 3-day weekend?

If you could sum LDW up in three words what would they be?

Have you ever been to a hot air balloon festival or even gone up in one?