47th Class Reunion

 Our main purpose in flying to Denver from Santa Barbara was because I had been helping to plan a class reunion. This year was 47 for the class of 1975. We also invited people from 1974, 1976, and 1977. And we had a couple of guys show up from 1973. We had a reception planned at the Kearney home on Friday evening, June 10 and then a catered dinner in Loveland on Saturday evening, June 11. The dinner on Saturday was at the Chilson Senior Center. Someone thought that was pretty funny to have that event at a senior center- lol. 😂 We had also planned to have dinner with a good high school friend and his family during that week. And also get together with Ron's brother, Ron's cousin, and Ron's niece. Those gatherings got canceled since Ron was sick. I skipped the Friday evening reception and tested myself again for Covid on Saturday morning... by some miracle it was still negative. So, I went to help set up and decorate for Saturday evening, then came back to the motel, took a quick shower and cleaned up, then drove back to the event. It turned our to be a fun evening for everyone involved. I didn't feel like I got to talk to very many people, I was too busy running around helping facilitate things. There were several of us taking pictures, but we haven't come up with a plan for sharing those with everyone. Here are the main ones that I took. I might add a few more to this post later. 

Other Santa Barbara Activities

I am trying to remember all of the other activities that we did with the Simms family. I may not get these in the correct order...for some reason it is all a blurr- lol. (I am pretty sure that I have lingering Covid brain.) We went to the new Top Gun Movie. We had dinner at Chilis. Owen and Westin ordered steaks with mashed potatoes and French Fries. That is what I would call, "meat and potatoes". Then dessert was the choc lava cake. We went to downtown Santa Barbara to an ice cream shop. We went to the mission to see the chalk art. (We have done that a couple of other times. My comment for this year was that a lot of the art seemed rather bleak, dark, and troubled. I am wondering if that is the result of Covid? I only took pictures of the ones that didn't seem like that.) One evening we cooked Smores out on the back porch over the firepit that Annie and Alex have now. We also had a lunch at the beach. We also had dinner at Los Agaves. That is a Mexican restaurant that the Simms love. 

The Main Event

The main event of our CA trip was Nathan's graduation. We had an amazing few days there with the Simms. When we got there on Thursday afternoon, Annie had dinner in the crock pot and she was working on decorating the dining room for a Graduation party with dessert. Graduation was at 5 pm. It was a great evening. Lots of people and crowded seating, but the weather was beautiful. I couldn't get very good pics from where we were sitting, but got some good pics afterwards. We went back to the house and had dinner out on the back porch, around there new large outdoor table. Then we had cupcakes inside. All of the seniors were going on a trip to Disneyland on Friday, so Nathan left early and got home late... or early on Saturday morning. On Sunday, we went to church. Nathan and his friend were ordained as Elders afterward. Sunday evening was seminary graduation. Perfect weekend all focused on Nathan. He is a great young man, with a strong testimony and is excited to serve a mission. The last photo is when Annie, Alex, and Nathan went to the temple after we left.