20th Annual Forever Friends Gathering

January 16th was our chance to get together with some of our dear friends, all of which we've known for 30 years or more. I'm not sure if it's really our 20th year of doing this, but it's been a long time.  It started when we lived in Southern California for 18 years and nearly every winter we'd come back to Phoenix between Christmas and New Year's to visit family and friends.  We always tried to reserve one day to gather with a few of our dear friends that we've known since the late 70's when we lived here in AZ the first time.  Most of these friends were married around the same time as us and had children at around the same time.  Our kids have known each other since birth and hopefully our grandkids will be the same.

This year the Mozingos graciously hosted the gathering.  It's really one of our favorite places to go, because it's like going out of town, even though they're still in the metro Phoenix area.  You'll see why from the photos.

This first pic is the inside of their front door.  They built this adobe home themselves and it has so many gorgeous touches that make it unique.  I just love the character of it.  The sidelight is made from the bottom of wine bottles.  I love the way the light shines thru it.

Most of us arrived by mid-afternoon so we could watch the Cardinals playoff game against New Orleans.  We had high hopes, but if you know anything about football, you'll know that they lost miserably, so the attention soon turned to the delicious food, wonderful fellowship and beautiful weather outside.

We each brought something to contribute to the meal.  Appetizers, drinks, desserts, soups, etc.  I won't go into a lot of detail because I forgot to take pictures of the food before it was picked over, but as always, we had so much more than we could eat and EVERYTHING was amazing!  If you don't want to come to these gatherings for any other reason, you will come for the food.  We are all very good at putting on a good spread.

During half time, many of us wandered outside to get our minds off the game and to see the latest developments in the Mozingo compound.  Some of us were fortunate to get a tour of Rand and Michelle's winter garden.  Brimming with gorgeous greens, turnips, radishes, cauliflower, broccoli and more.  It was fun to see and sample so many delicious healthy treats.  Thanks Rand!  You're a gardening inspiration.

After the tour we all just hung out in the back yard for a while.  I decided this year that I wanted to try to take a group photo at these annual gatherings so that we can look back at the growth and changes that have happened.  Sadly we haven't done it all along, but we still have lots of photos of these times together each year.  And now that I have a tripod and a remote control for my camera, it makes it that much easier.

The Thompson clan was out in force, but the rest of the families were a bit light on kids.  I think our kids would have loved to be there, if they weren't living in other states. We need to figure out a way to do this when they're in town sometimes.  And Emolyn was the only grandchild here, so needless to say she was quite the center of attention.  I look forward to the day when there are scads of little ones running around, experiencing what true friendship looks like and the love, grace and joy that fills these times together.

Shawn, Nicole and Emolyn

This is Jenna and her friend Sarah.  They've been friends since they were born too!

I love this shot of these old friends sharing stories.

Can you guess who they're all looking at?

 You guessed it!  Emolyn!  

Can you tell that her Uncle Tyler adores her?

She's at that perfect age when she'll do all kinds of "tricks" with the prompting of

adults around her. We saw many animal impersonations, ad-lib songs, dancing and so much more.

What a fun age she is!

 

Emolyn's parents, Nicole and Shawn, of course.

 

And here's Aunt Miranda singing with Em.

There was a threat of rain, but fortunately it held off for our get-together.

 Enjoy the rest of these photos.  They are self-explanatory.  I hope you get a picture of this wonderful place, group of people and time together.  It's one of our favorite gatherings of the year.  We wouldn't miss it for the world. 

We decided that next year we want to bring marshmallows, chocolate and Ginger Snaps and make a new kind of s'mores.  Doesn't that sound delicious?  But what should we call them?

HAPPY 75TH BIRTHDAY DAD!!!

Today is Terry's dad's birthday and here are a few photos from his life!  

This first one is of him and his brother, Dick.

I love this one of him trying to do yard work with an injured foot.  What a hero!  I wonder if he actually got anything done that day.

And check out the primitive backpack that he used to carry Julie around when they were camping.  Pretty interesting, huh?

And then there's this awesome one of all the Hann boys.  Did you know that our Amy was the first Hann girl born in 3 generations?  Terry's little sister Julie was adopted.   Coincidentally, Amy is in the bottom photo with Dad, Ginny, Terry and I.  We were eating at the Mining Camp, one of the Hann family's favorite places to go.  Everything is served family style (all you can eat).  What other place would you want to go with 5 hungry boys to feed?

We are so blessed to have Terry Sr. (Theron) in our lives.  Especially for me, since my dad passed away when I was 20 years old.  Terry (Sr.) is the only grandfather that our children have ever known and they love him dearly.

He's such a sweet man, full of love, joy, compassion and kindness.  He loves to laugh, joke and have fun!

We're looking forward to celebrating his big birthday when we're back there visiting next week!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD!!!  SEE YOU SOON TO CELEBRATE YOUR BIG DAY!

(Ginny, Don't forget that you can click on each of this photos to make them cover the whole screen.)

HAPPY 75TH BIRTHDAY GINNY !!! 

These are pictures from Dad and Ginny's wedding day in Rochester, New York a few years ago when we officially welcomed Ginny into the Hann family.  It was such a special day!  My Terry was the Best Man and Ginny's daughter was the Maid/matron of Honor.

We're so happy to have her in the family.  She takes good care of Terry's dad and is so much fun to be with. She loves to laugh and has such a great outlook on life.


Very soon we'll be flying to North Carolina to visit them.  This will be our first time there, but I know it won't be our last.

Ginny, we hope you have an extra special day and we look forward to celebrating with you when we get to North Carolina.

Visiting the So Cal Hanns
As mentioned before, a few weeks ago we decided on the spur of the moment to go to Southern California to see our kids. We had just found out that Kevin (who was living in Omaha) was hired for a new job in Mississippi and it was going to be just a couple of weeks before he had to start working. Since it had been over a year since we'd seen him, we asked if he'd be willing to fly to Los Angeles and spend a few days with us and Amy & Andrew before he moved to Meridian, Mississippi and he agreed. Yea!

Whenever we can work it out, one of our mandatory stops is a visit to see Terry's brother, Ted and their family. They were a big part of the reason that we originally moved to Santa Clarita and we love spending time with them when we we're there. We miss hanging out with them on holidays and for all of our kids' activities, so we always look forward to whatever time we can have with them.  So we all planned to head over there after we checked into our hotel and Andrew got off work.

They live on top of a hill on a flag lot with a gorgeous view of the Santa Clarita Valley and when we pulled up, the sun was just setting, so I jumped out of the car and ran to the back yard to snap a few pics before the color was gone.

Then we enjoyed some delicious dinner that we picked up from StoneFire Grill in Valencia.  I miss this place and had been craving a BBQ Chopped Chicken or Tri tip salad with cilantro dressing!  Unfortunately, they ran out of the dressing, so I had to settle for another kind, but the salad was still great.  We also had some excellent BBQ Chicken pizza and a new kind, "Allison's Creation" pizza which was so tasty as well.  I would love to have one of these places in Phoenix.  I tell you that we would be there all the time!  I'm sure it would be a hit here.

We had our dinner on the back patio with that amazing view of the valley.  So nice!

After dinner Terry, Kevin and Spencer decided they wanted to play guitars.  Fortunately, Spencer has 3 of them so they were all able to play together.  Lucas joined in with a little percussion as well.

All the kids are growing up so fast.  It won't be long and they'll ALL be adults and having kids of their own.  That's just crazy to think about.  Wow!

Belated Happy Birthday to Kristi and Spencer!!

Sorry this is late, but I wanted to get in a birthday wish for my sister-in-law, Kristi and our nephew, Spencer.  His birthday was Saturday and hers was Monday (sorry to be so late).  I hope it was a special day of fun with family and friends for both of them.

Here's a picture of Kristi and Ted on their wedding day when we officially welcomed her into the family.  Isn't she gorgeous?

This one of Spencer was taken just a couple of weeks ago when we were there and the guys were jamming on guitars.  Spencer has one of Terry's old guitars.  It's so awesome to see him playing it.  It's nice when you see someone else getting good use out of something that you've given away.

And the one below is a family picture from a couple of years ago of the whole gang.

We were glad that we had a chance to hang out with them when we were in Santa Clarita a few weeks ago.  I'll post some more pics of that soon, I promise.

We used to live just a few miles from them for almost 20 years (a couple in AZ, then 18 more in So Cal).  We miss being able to see them and share holidays and celebrations with them.  It's been fun sorting pictures these last few weeks and getting to see them all again at all ages.

Anyway, Happy Belated Birthday to both of you!  Hope they were good ones.

We love you guys!