St. Patrick's Day

I always enjoy Sharon's corned beef and cabbage.

With Tom on a South America cruise, there wasn't a St. Patrick's Day Party this year.

St. Patrick's Day Party

At the end of the day, Sharon and I headed to Sharon's brother Tom's house for a St. Patrick's Day dinner. It was a fairly large group, including: Tom, Kevin, Leah, Lydia, Amelia, Terry and Steve, Tim and Kathy, Erin and Cormac, Eileen and Will; the Ryans, their son Chris and granddaughter, Jim, Mary, Beth?, Larry, Sharon and I.

The night ended aburptly...

St. Patrick's Day Party

At the end of the day, I headed to Sharon's brother Tom's house for a small St. Patrick's Day gathering. The group included: Kevin, Leah, Lydia and Amelia; Larry; Jim; Mary; and, Chris, his wife and granddaugther (going with Tom on the Greenland cruise). Tom made a nice dinner of corned beef, cabbage, carrots and potatoes.

St. Patrick's Day

I always enjoy Sharon's corned beef and cabbage!

Corned Beef and Cabbage

We had an early small St. Patrick's Day celebration. Sharon's brother Tom came over for dinner and Sharon made a great meal of corned beef and cabbage. Before dinner, we played a couple of rounds of the board game Locale.

St. Patrick's Day Party

Sharon and I spent the afternoon at a St. Patrick's Day Party at her brother Tom's house. Tom made a great early dinner of Corned Beef and Cabbage.

The group included: Eric and Ashley; Kevin, Leah, Lydia and Amelia; Teri and Steve; Erin; Eileen and Will; Jim; Larry and Diana; Lou and Nadine; Mary; Chris (from Sharon's work); Chris and his wife (the couple that Tom went on the South American Cruise); Sharon and I; and a couple of others whose name I didn't get... Still not feeling a 100%, I made an early exit.

2018 Spring Training - Day 2

Rolling out of bed fairly early, I ran for over an hour and 6.10 miles on the treadmill. Getting cleaned up, Drew and I picked up Tomasin and David at the Hampton and headed to Harlow's. Jenny found this restaurant in 2004. It has been a Spring Training tradition ever since. We got a nice table for eight after a very short wait! The Wallens, Kurt and Vic pulled up just as they called our name for the table.

The game for the day was the Cubs versus the Indians at Sloan Field. This is a brand new ballpark in only its second year. The Indians beat the Cubs by the score of 5 to 1. I have to admit that I didn't watch much of the baseball on Friday and Saturday. We spent a lot of time wandering around and visiting. Jill did a great job on Saturday of getting three rows of five on the aisle. This was a great configuration for visiting with the group.

A log of spring training games I have seen over the years is here.

Back at the Hampton after the game, we watched a little of the NCAA basketball tournament in Tomasin's room. Eventually, the group headed to downtown Tempe for dinner. We had dinner at Macayo's Depot Cantina [a combination with a chicken enchilada and chicken burrito].

For the second straight day, we finished the night at Philly's playing pool. Drew and I were back to our a hotel a little before 11 pm.

2017 Spring Training Day 1

I booked a 9:00 am flight from Sacramento to Phoenix. Unfortunately, Southwest has having some struggles with a number of flights. The flight eventually took at about 9:40 am and got me to Phoenix about 11:30 am.

Although I supposed to get to Phoenix ahead of Snipes and Keith and Tomasin. I ended up about 10 minutes behind Snipes and just ahead of Tomasin. I made a decision to head for the rental car rather than meet everyone. Given all long it took me to get back to the terminal to pick everyone up, I probably made a poor decision...

Once I collected everyone, we headed to Maryvale. The game for the first day was the Brewers versus the Royals. The Royals won the game by the score of 8 to 5. The Royals scored 3 runs in the top of the first and the Brewers followed with 5 runs in the bottom of the first. I was surprised to see Eric Sogard playing for the Brewers.

A log of spring training games I have seen over the years is here.

It is a big group for all three days. I have affectionally called it the Wallen Family and Friends Spring Training Trip. Friday included lots of Wallens (11), including: Wallen and Jill; Bob; Kyle and Mary Rose; Bill and two of his sons; Jenny and CJ; and, Carol. The hanger-ons included: Tomasin; Snipes and Keith; Doug and Bob; and, me. Like past years, Marcus from Wallen's office was there with two of his buddies. They are like ghosts; I hardly ever seen them. Dennis, a friend of Wallen's who now lives in Tucson, was also there. The group totaled twenty-one.

After the game, Tomasin, Snipes, Keith and I ended up at the Purple Turtle near the stadium. We watched most of the UC Davis versus Kansas NCAA basketball game. For the first time in history, UC Davis was in the tournament. They won their play-in game on Wednesday. They got beat up by Kansas; the score was 100 to 62.

There was a wild mix of people at the Purple Turtle. In one corner near the entrance, there was off track betting!

From there, we headed to the house that the Wallens were renting in Northeast Phoenix. They cooked a nice pasta dinner. After watching more basketball, we eventually headed to our hotels. Although Snipes and I had coordinated, he ended up at a Holiday Inn about 3 miles from where I made a reservation at the Residence Inn. After dropping Snipes and Keith, Tomasin and I crashed at the Residence Inn after 11:00 pm.

2013 St. Patrick's Day

We celebrated St. Patrick's day with a dinner of corn beef and cabbage at Tom and Becky's. We had a small group for dinner that included Tommy, Becky, Jim, Sharon, Jack and I. We finished the evening with Jack and I losing bocce ball to Jim and me losing two games of chess to Jack...

St. Patrick's Day