Hang on! August is in high gear.

I promised I would tell you what has been going on.  Way back a long time ago, three weeks maybe, we were getting ready to go to Denver for a family reunion.  My garden veggies were in full swing which meant that there were daily pickings.  Green beans to get in the freezer and dill pickles that needed to be canned.  I was rushing to get as much done as I could along with planning and packing for the trip.

We flew to Denver, rented a car the action began.  The reunion was my mom's family, the Phillipp's crew.   My mom was the oldest of four sisters and there are 17 first cousins, who now have children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.  Then there are a whole passel of 2nd and 3rd cousins, so many that I can't even remember who they all are.

My cousin Judy hosted this year's reunion with her sisters, Nancy, Lisa and Nikki helping out.  She lives in Wheatridge on a beautiful hillside overlooking Clear Creek and has a lovely view of the mountains.

This part of my family was always the musical group.  My mom and her three sisters always sang together.  They would sing a capella and their three and four-part harmony was so beautiful.  The youngest sister, Aunt Betty, passed away when I was in high school, but I still remember all four of them singing together.

We have had five reunions and there was always music at everyone of them.

 I took these photos at the reunion in Denver in 2003.  Sadly, my mom and all of her sisters have left us, but they sang at this reunion and we have a recording of it.

Cousin Judy and her mom, my Aunt Merle- 2003

Aunt Shirley- 2003

My mom and and my brother, Roy, 2003

I found this photo of my cousin Judy from 1968.  She has a beautiful singing voice and sand in a band.  I think this is one of the band photos.

My brother, Don and I also played in a band back in those days, but that's another story. 

Cousin Nancy and David - 2019

Cousin Lisa-2019

Cousin Teena and her husband, Harry with daughter, Jill, 2003

 I wish I could say that I ended up with a lot of good photos of the reunion this year, but they turned out so-so...  Bummer.

The entire time was action-packed because during the day we all took off to look at the sites in Denver.  This included going to the Denver Museum of Science and Nature, the Denver Aquarium, the Denver Zoo and a trip to Golden, Colorado and also to Dinosaur Ridge.

To top it all off, the Rolling Stones concert was on Saturday night and some of my relatives were die hard Stones fans so off they went to concert - for front row seats no less.  Rock on Mick!

There was so much to see at the Denver Museum one couldn't possibly see it all in one day.  My personal favorite was the Leonardo da Vinci exhibit.  There were copies of many of his sketch books with his drawings of inventions.  Using the his designs they built dozens of them and some were hands-on.  Grandson Ben loved them.

The Flying Machine

Ben, David and Rylee

JP, having a good time.

I'll throw in a few more photos from the zoo and the museum, plus Dinosaur Ridge.

Sad tiger....

Dinosaur tracks and yes, it was very interesting.  Ben is a big dinosaur fan.

Son David, Julie and Ben.

Son JP and Retired Mountain Man at the museum

Grandsons Collin and Ben, RMM, David and JP

Yes, I have my shoes off.  My feet hurt.  Do you realize how many miles we walked between the 80 acre zoo, the museum and the aquarium?   I think I spent half my time looking for a place to sit down.

We had a wonderful time.  We flew home and I was back in the garden that afternoon.  Yes, there were more green beans to pick.  It took us several days to recover from the trip and then it was back to Friday and gig time at Trinity.   As I said in one of my previous posts, get ready for August because everyone tries to pack in as much as they can before summer ends.

Yesterday, our satellite Internet decided to stop working, which meant two entire days without Internet service. How could one survive?  The technician arrived today and everything is back online.

In the meantime I discovered my sweet corn is ripe.  Hallelujah!  The one reason to plant a garden.  Fresh corn on the cob!