Friends – Page 2 – kristilynk

Thought I’d stop by

May! So far so good but lets travel back in time a bit all the way to April, like 2-3 weeks ago.

I’ve done some moving and shaking, but just around Arizona.

April was Tucson for a show in downtown. We stayed at the historic Hotel Congress and had too much wine so even if there were any ghosts to be seen I would have been stone cold sleeping.

The following week we headed up to Crown King. A couple of our friends are getting married up there this coming October so they wanted to check out the venue. Crown King is another historic location, old mining town = dusty and dry. The little hotel we stayed in was a different story, many flowers, green grass, horses and really felt like we were in a little magical place.

Cut to..Jasons birthday week. There was a huge damper on celebration due to the sudden, unexpected, devastating death of a good friend. Good friend in the sense of chosen family. I won’t say any more…because, Hi, I am Kristi. I tend to bury my head in the sand when reality smacks me in the face.

Last minute decisions and phone calls were made to gather a group of our close friends and celebrate the life of Scott and Jasons birthday. Scott would have wanted it that way. It was a good night.

Fast forward another week, this trip brought us up more north to Whitehorse Lake in Williams, AZ. It is not often we camp in a for real campground. When I say “not often” I mean like I am pretty sure there have only been 4 times we have stayed in a for real campground. Whitehorse is the absolute coolest of all of the campgrounds of the 3 I have visited. Three sites because I have now been to Whitehorse 2 times. That’s all the math I will do tonight.

We rented the group site, there were 7 spots and a gazebo for us all to hang out, drink, play games and grill. I didn’t play games and I didn’t grill so I drank.

Amy brought all the ladies lil champs and OJ for mimosa for mothers day – bubbles and branches

Muppet babies, yes this is in AZ but it was like 35 degrees at night and COLD. Our 78 year old dogs get cold.

Renting out the entire area is the best way to go when camping in a non-wild manner. We were here for Saturday, Sunday and came home on Monday. The trip was not perfect, there were issues which were out of our control. WIND..oh my goodness, so..much..wind. This was my 2nd time here, neither times was I able to get the paddle board on the water. It was too windy this time. The last time I had just had 20 stitches from my hand removed and I didn’t want to chance getting lake water in my newly healed wound. As I was typing those words, I was making myself sick to my stomach just thinking about that. Sorry if that disturbed you.

The tiny dog, Larry, decided to try to end his life by jumping off the tailgate of the Tacoma. It didn’t work, he survived but he was sore.

Chubba Wubba, Ollie, had a scary seizure in the middle of the night. She too survived but was also sore and tired.

Our brand new, out of the box, Coleman sunshade broke because it is a 150.00 piece of garbage. The metal things snapped in the wind. We had to throw it away. I need to have a word with Mr. Coleman please.

We were all good and tired by the time we got home Monday afternoon but really in the end…a weekend in the woods, even with a series of unfortunate events, will always be a good idea. There will always be beautiful moments in nature. I’ll hold those moments closer.

You can’t really “make”time.

There are so many things we (humans) want or need to do. It’s said…a lot… you want it you have to MAKE the time to do it. There is no way to MAKE time. You have to change the way you use your time. This will take sacrifice or a game of if I do this I can’t do that. Example. I want to wake up an hour early to workout. I won’t because if I do, I can’t get that extra hour of sleep.

I’ve had a great day of “self care”. Yoga, manicure, putting around the house (ok really I was smudging the house with sage), took a stroll on the treadmill, did some journaling. It was lovely.

To do all of the things today, I had to sacrifice chilling at home with Jason and the muppet babies, my dogs for those of you who don’t know me. To write this random post, I’m sacrificing time. It means I’ll be late. We are having guests over and I still need to shower. I don’t want to so… here I am.

So I started this workbook called, “the artists way”. It told me to write three pages, long hand, each morning. It basically garbage. Not the idea, the idea is pretty cool especially because I’m writing about nothing. Only random thoughts, it’s pretty freeing, you wake up and write a few pages of all of the nonsense rolling around your brain first thing in the morning.

Some of the exercises are pretty intense if you want them to be. I don’t so I will cherry pick and sugar coat the things I don’t want to address in my mind. It’s week one. We’ll see how far I get. 😆

2022, day 1

Done, in the books! It’s officially 2022. My day started out with a casual 4.5 wog (walk/jog) on the treadmill in my garage. I didn’t want to leave my house so I opted for home “gym” time.

Afterwards, I cleaned to prepare for friends and fam time, showered and complete just in the knick of time! It was a full house minus a few people (a couple down due to Covid and one down due to work emergency).

We had everything bacon! Jason made brisket, Shannon brought her world famous potato salad (with bacon), Danny made Mac n cheese topped..with bacon, Wyatt brought field peas, green beans mixed with… you guessed it… BACON! Me think I will be trying two days meat free this upcoming week.

We listened to records, watched movies, Shannon brought tarot cards, ate and of course there were adult bevy’s.

Hence the reason my activity numbers are so low today. 😅

The 3 minutes of exercise might be when I did some dishes. 😂 All in all it was a good first day of the new year. I was happy to spend it at home, with people I love.

I cannot end this post without a picture of the most excellent meat slab. You’re welcome 😇

I’m told the red ring is called the “smoke ring”

On the road to 2022

The end of 2021 is upon us. I know I am absolutely not going to make it to midnight to “ring in the new year” and I am 100% OK with that. Midnight, is not my gig. What I am excited about is tomorrow, New Years day. We have friends and family coming over, Jason is making brisket. The friends and fam are bringing sides and we will start 2022 out properly. There will be drinks, food and silly conversations.

I ended 2021 exactly how I wanted. Well, I did wake up a little earlier than I would have liked but it allowed me to enjoy more time. Jason and I has coffee, breakfast and then I hit the gym for a spin class. The gym session was followed by hours upon hours of couch surfing. After all, I am trying to finish out a ridiculous Netflix series..so embarrassed to say but..yes, I am on the last season of….”Riverdale”. It is dumb as..but, I am hooked. Who else has been lassoed into this this ridiculousness?

My European friends have already said hello to 2022. We, here in Arizona, have another 5 hours and 15 minutes!

I am thankful for so much. 2021 was good to me. It was NOT perfect, but what I did realize if you have people in your life who accept you for who you are at your worst and still reach out and love you…hold on to those people. Look inside yourself…what can you do to make them proud? What can you do to show them you are thankful for not giving up on you?

Happy New Year everyone. I hope you stay safe, healthy and on course. Your course. Whatever that may be.

Stupendous San Diego

My girls and I packed up, and by packed I mean threw some things in a backpack, and drove to San Diego for a fun filled day and a half.

We left pretty early so we could make the paddle out memorial for a local San Diego girl who succumbed to a rare brain tumor just a few weeks prior. Fuck cancer, by the way.

But praise be to all of these folks brave enough to paddle out to pay homage to their homie . The weather was amazing, it could not have been more perfect. There was something in the air I cannot place with words but I felt surrounded with love and peace.

After we paid our respects we took a walk through the cute little downtown area of Encinitas for a little shopping.

Then on to the hotel for a little pre-game and dinner before the “big ass party” to celebrate Kiras short but amazing life.

We stayed at the Hilton in Del Mar, within drunk walking distance to the venue of course.

The big ass party was just that! There was music and a bar and dancing and so many good people. I bet Kira would have been super happy to see such a turn out, such a moving experience. We could all be so lucky to have a celebration of life like hers!

I never met this firecracker of a girl but it sure felt like I had. (My friend and me were there to support my sister in law, she is friends with the family).

It was a long but great day and into the night great fun was had.

Cut to, yes I’m leaving details after 9pm out of this post, the next morning. 😊

We peeled ourselves out of bed and got ready to meet our friends for brunch.

Delicious. Not much is better than brunch on the patio at the Bernardo Winery with your bestest friends! 🥰

One more stop before we geared up for the five hour drive home.

Our friend, Tracy Sekhon, has started an awe inspiring non-profit research and treatment facility in Rancho Bernardo for those on the Autism spectrum. It’s truly phenomenal and the facility is gorgeous. I’m not just saying this because there are massage chairs that I’m pretty sure were put there just for me. 😂

I strongly encourage you to dig into her website , they’re going to do wonderful things!

https://www.artcsandiego.org/

We were treated to an in depth tour of the facility and I can safely say, all five of us were beyond impressed.

Having said our goodbyes, the girls and I hit the road! Oh but there was one more stop! Quick stop off at Chuparosa winery, in Ramona, to grab a few bottles.

The end 🏄🏼‍♀️🏄🏼‍♀️🏄🏼‍♀️

Friday Night Fun

So, I’m back! Late, but I made it! I’ll be honest, I missed my Sunday appointment with you because I am lazy. Period. I didn’t want to, so I didn’t.

I’m here now and I am going to tell you about my experience at the Medieval Times Dinner & Tournament in Scottsdale, AZ.

First I must say, I struggle with the word Medieval. Is it pronounced Meddy evil or Mid Evil? Tell me in the comments please, I’d like to stop stressing over the proper pronunciation.

Moving on… my sister and brother in law (If they are mentioned again, they will from here out called by there proper names, Shannon and Brian) scooped us up at 17:15 to make the trek to Scottsdale ~ about a 30 minute ride. We met our friends, Danny and Amy and Christopher and Cali and Andrew in the front so we could all be seated together. Apologies for the crappy photos but I havent figured out how to get my cell pictures from icloud to look normal, no I’m not that old I just do not have the attention span to figure it out yet. That’s another plan for another day. 🙂

*Tip number one – If you are with a group of people you have to purchase your tickets (50.00 per person for dinner and the show) at the same time to be sure you will be in the same group. Even if you’re in the same group, you’re not guaranteed to sit next to each other unless you all check in together.

We grabbed drinks (one glass of wine and a less than a pint of beer cost 20.00 ~ in the same range of what you’ll pay at a Football game or a concert) at the 80 foot long bar (of which only 30 feet were used and open so it too a bit of time).

Group photo time! I think this was an additional 21.00, they take it and if you like it you can buy it for a mere 21.00 if you don’t like it…you don’t have to buy it!

We all took a walk through the “Museum of Torture” ~ this is an additional fee, only 2.00 but just as a heads up. The lack of air flow in this walkway was the most torturous for me. Seriously, it is Arizona and this museum was so hot and stuffy, they really should splurge some and crank the A/C up in there. I also learned that I would have definitely NOT survived the 11th century. These crazy ass torture devices were insane. It seemed to me alot of the devices were geared more toward outspoken, “ill-behaved” women.

Next up, Dinner and a show. They call it a four course meal when really they just bring everything to you separately. First up, a piece of garlic bread and a bowl of soup. Yum 🙂

Seriously, I will figure out this whole icloud, cell phone photo business…just not today.

Don’t, worry I did not take a photo of each and every morsel they brought to me, just this really. Next up was a chicken leg (oh by the way! no utensils you sop the soup with your bread and drink the rest from the bowl itself) then they brought what appeared to be a potato wedge, then a half a corn cob, then ice cream. I only ate the bread, soup and chicken leg. I had a glass of wine and water and got full. I heard the potato wedge was super salty and the corn cob was just like a corn cob 😉

The show is about two hours long and consisted of jousting, fancy pretty pony tricks, there was a falcon and some mano y mano choreographed sword fighting with the occasional spark spouting from their swords. In the end it was a fun night with friends and family.

To be honest, I did have to force myself to make myself believe this was OK for the horses. I do hope these horses are treated like the princes and princesses they truly are. There are so many horror stories of creatures in captivity and I want to believe these gorgeous beings are having the times of their lives.

One year and seven months

This is how long I’ve been “away”. I want to get back, but I’m not quite sure how to get there. Maybe this is step one, maybe this is just another pop in to leave you all hanging for another year and seven months.

I will say this, I’ve never used a calendar and I am notorious for having commitment issues regarding making plans. With that said, I’m doing it! I am going to put you on my calendar for this coming Sunday. Nothing major planned but my friends and fam are headed to Scottsdale this weekend to check out the new Medieval Times Dinner Theater, I’ll let you know how it is!

Until then, I hope each and everyone one of you has an amazing rest of the week!

Ta ta!

Happy New Year!

It’s good to be back! Well, I think? I guess it depends on how well this post goes. I am extremely out of blogging/writing practice. I didn’t bother to check my page to see how long it has been since I’ve posted ANYTHING. I would venture to guess it’s been at least since the last NY.

In 2017, I denied you access to my stories and photos of travel, monotony, ups and downs. Quick summary ~ (based on memory so I’m sure more things happened but I can’t remember everything). My memories are all documented on my phone and I don’t know how to extract them to my laptop so here goes..2017 highlights! Mother/daughter trip to San Diego to visit friends, photo shoot road trips with the husbands band, lunch dates with the bestie, annual Backwoods Beerfest (camping with booze on the Mogollon Rim), trip to visit friends in North Carolina (love it there), Roger Waters concert, Mother/Daughter trip to Amsterdam and Spain, Great Christmas with family and friends.

Cut to:

The last day of 2017 was spent with the husband and our friend visiting from Switzerland. Where do you take a guy from the cold mountains of Switzerland when he visits Arizona?

Flagstaff, AZ. of course 😉 We jumped in my car and headed north.

First stop was lunch at SnowBowl. The lunch was subpar but the views and the company were supreme.

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Sadly, Arizona has had zero snow..look at how dry the trees and their surroundings are

All the snow behind us, for the skiers, was man-made. After lunch we decided to venture off to a place neither Jason nor I had ever been. The Lava River Cave. It is located about 18 miles west of Snow Bowl so it took us no time to get there. It is off a dirt road, so I did worry we were headed in the wrong direction, but it turned out to be an OK drive even with my little Volkswagen.

The cave entrance is only a short jaunt, through the pines, from the parking lot.

I am claustrophobic and we only had cell phones to light our path so I didn’t think we were going to get out of there alive. As per usual, my worries were unwarranted, walking over the rocks down into the cave was cake and super open, not like a spelunking cave at all. 🙂 P.S. don’t ever ask me to go spelunking…not doin’ it!

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VICTORIUS!

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We made it about half way through and my cell phone died leaving me with no light source, I had to walk up all in Jasons business to follow his light. A few times, I couldn’t keep up and had to stop dead in my tracks and cry, “Help me, I’m stuck”.

We made it out alive! 🙂

If you’re ever in the area, you should check it out. It’s pretty amazing this tube, just under a mile long, was formed around 700,000 years ago from melted rocks..

You can read more about it here: Lava River Cave

Daylight was fading fast so we decided to head south, made a pit stop in Sedona so our Swiss friend could absorb the spiritual vortex mojo of this great locale. We did arrive just in time for him to see the great red rocks of the area but the sun quickly disappeared. Grabbed a cappuccino to go and head for home.

All in all it was a great way to end 2017.

With that, I will end this post with a visual of how my day one 2018 was spent. Perfectly.

League Day!

Football season is here and with that brings our annual Fantasy Football league day draft. It’s great fun to get together, have snacks and steal each others draft picks for this years Football games.

I am barely a football fan but I have to admit these draft parties are a great way to spend a Saturday. 🙂

That picture was stolen from my friends Facebook page because the only picture I took yesterday was this one of the board and one of our league members cautiously choosing his next player.

There are sixteen rounds of picks and to be honest..I was done thinking by round five but I trooped along until… round 15..I, admittedly, allowed our friends three year old daughter to pick her favorite color (player position) and any ole sticker (player name). Those were to be my final picks 🙂

The guys said she did a good job though so I’m not complaining! win win! I’ve played FF for three years now and have yet to win the SHIVA..(yes, we stole this name from the show The League..it is a trophy given to the inner of the FF league..Maybe this is year we will get to bring it home!

You have to understand, people…this process takes like FOUR hours! Yes, HOURS…we have drinks and snacks and breaks and ten different conversations going on throughout so it is easy to understand the length of time and commitment needed.

Did I tell you there were snacks? I’ve heard people talking of cheat days, yesterday was definitely an indulgent cheat day..

I ate mounds of buffalo chicken dip laced with blue cheese, pizza bread, three beers (a delicious Camelback IPA from our local brewery) and a chilled glass of Cab to round out the day.

Now, I guess I should find out when the real football season starts and maybe log into my ESPN account to move some players about!

Happy Sunday everyone! I hope it goes slow for you if you are so lucky to have this day to rest and fast for you if you’re so lucky to be working!

Cultural Celebration

A few weeks ago Jason told me we had been invited to a milestone celebration for our neighbors seven month old daughter. Obviously, the fact that I grew up in a completely culture free environment, I had never heard of Annaprashan. I had much to investigate! What is this celebration? What am I supposed to wear? What type gift do I bring?

In a nutshell, Annaprashan is a Hindu rite of passage (Anna means “grain” and Prashan means “to feed” ~ so the celebration is the beginning step to the weaning process from milk to solid foods. OK..I’ll buy that..plus..who can pass up a legit reason to bring family and friends to together to admire the baby (insert annoying lady from Seinfeld “Ya gotta see the babayyyy”) have great food and enjoy company??

Gift ideas can be anywhere from gold/silver bowls (most likely left to the family members to present) spoons and plates to outfits an baby memorabilia.. I decided to leave the fancy gift ideas to their family..I wouldn’t want to one up the grandparents :D…and settled on a simple cute outfit, a couple of bibs and a stainless steel sippy cup.

As much as I wanted to dress up in Salwar Kameez, I supposed that would be inappropriate soooo… I opted for simple black dress pants, a gray 3/4 sleeve top and simple Steve Madden pointy toe pumps. 🙂

Received with great smiles from the hosts and family – we said our congratulations and ogled the beautifully dress guest of honor, set our gift bag down and were both happy to see that our old neighbors were there with their three little ones. We sat at a table with them and caught up while we gorged on appetizers.

Side note: I really wanted to bring my camera but Jason said, “NO” ~ I didn’t even feel comfortable taking cell phone pictures so I hate to say this but…I snagged these pictures from google images 😦

I don’t remember the name of these but they were so good dipped in this beautiful green sauce:

I tasted cucumber and cilantro and now I must find a recipe to copy!

I’ll leave that for another day..for now I have learned this dipping sauce is green chutney and does not have any cucumber in it whatsoever. They had Tamarind Chutney also but the dates tasted too much like prunes and I did not like the sweetness – on the other hand…Jason loved it..

The chicken tikka masala was AH..MAY..ZINGG..

There were a lot of children there – maybe twelve? Our hosts had prepared for this so they brilliantly hired a magician to entertain the hyperactive little people and it worked like a charm! He had me on the edge of my seat laughing the entire time. I told Jason on the way home this magician made me want to adopt a five year old so I could have a party that included a magician…He laughs now but we’ll see.. muahh ah ah ah..

Close to the end of the performance, the main course was set out for us to fill our plates.

Jason pointed out ..all of the men were handling this task as the women all sat at their own tables. I told him this was because the women do all the work in labor and after the baby is out! 🙂 I don’t know if this is true or not but seems perfectly logical to me.

There were so many dishes to try! I did try small samples of each of them and my favorites were:

The rice pilaf with peas:

and…the goat mutton

I have never eaten goat before..It reminded a bit of as if a lamb and just the part of a cow that makes roast were to have a baby. So good.

After dinner there was CAKE! I was so full from dinner that I only managed two bites but the whip cream frosting was the best. All in all I’d say their Annaprashan was a great success and I was so flattered to have been invited to take part! I love learning about the rituals of other cultures.