Mission accomplished, ice cream for everyone!

They’re open for business and we’re ready to order!

On the way to get ice cream!

It's a Barton family reunion tradition! This year, we had to go down the road to find an open store. So a lot of us piled into the back of Ron's truck and headed off. He tried to roll us a few times.

Fireside chat!

It was fun to see all the younger generation gathering around the fire to chat, play music and laugh. One night they even declared it a no phone zone. They talked late into the night.

Twelve year old Sidney said she liked to join them, "Because they talk about real things! They didn't even talk about Barbies once!"

We went looking for the Neowise Comet. All I got was this picture of the Big Dipper.

I think we were a little late in the month, but we still had fun piling into the back of my cousin's truck and trying to get a good view.

I love the night mode on my phone. It lets me take these pictures in the dark without a tripod or anything!

I caught a tender moment between two brothers.

Isaac was sharing his oatmeal with Ian...

We did get to spend a lot of time relaxing in the shade.

Some people are more sensitive to the sun than others... ;)

It's always nice if you can get some to hold your parasol for you!

The sun was pretty intense this weekend. I got burnt in only 30 minutes of exposure. I guess Johnny gets that from me?!

The highlights of the 2020 Family Reunion

Good times had by all.  Lots of great memories.  It’s fun to see the next generation of kids joining in their own activities, traditions, and going out of their way to make it.

It’s fun to see all the kids forming their own relationships in the group.

"Kids" of all ages joined for picnic table chats, card games, feats of strength and fireside gatherings.

We had a nice little setup for camp.

We always enjoy sitting around and catching up in between our many activities.

The king of the log chucking contest from our family reunion weekend...!

We called it Chuck-a-muk.  I won it with a combo of technique, timing, and old man strength... :)

And a new event, the yearly chucking of the log.

We called it "Chuck-a-muck". See who can throw it the furthest on the fly. It provided hours of entertainment for all. Even some of the other camp sites joined in the cheering.

The yearly chipping of the log...

This is what happens when you forget and leave your food box out overnight...

No more bananas... I think the raccoons probably enjoyed themselves...!

Perfect forecast for our family reunion this past weekend.

It turned out to be pretty accurate. A few less coulda and a little higher temperatures. Pretty nice!

Johnny’s classmate made this caricature of them.

All from their Zoom class meetings and social postings. Johnny's the one in the upper right.

The sunset on the approaching storm front.

I saw this when I came out of the store while shopping for our family reunion this past weekend.

Percy isn’t quite happy about us petting the neighborhood barn cats... haha.

Epic sun shot peaking through the clouds!

It looks like some kind of eruption or explosion!

Percy’s all ready to go on a camping trip with us...!

My cat Scruffy from my high school/college era.

Shadow’s keeping tabs on things, resting her chin on my table.

A nice end of the day on a productive yet fun weekend.

Is it wrong to have ice cream before noon?!

A nice day to work in the yard Sunday afternoon...

It was 94º with a really high heat index*, then a nice storm came through and it dropped the temperature about 20º. I can live with that! :)

*Note the temperature in the upper right corner is the “feels like” temperature.  The little down arrow indicates the current barometer trend.

the joy of fatherhood.

Some more memories.

The joy of being me.

Some memories.

Andy and I went on a small road trip this past weekend.

We hit a going out of business sale in Dayton and the 5.11 store in Cincinati. Of course we had to get some breakfast along the way.

The view out the window of Butter Cafe

We’ve been saving our change for eight years or so.

When we got change after using cash, we would "feed Thomas", by putting it in Andy's piggy bank at the end of the day.

Andy and his friends got together recently to count it up. We always called it the college fund and it turns out we've saved up about enough for a class or two at Sinclair.

Andy and I at breakfast this weekend.

Bacon, avocado and tomato omelets. Butter Cafe downtown Dayton.

I found this collection of special mini-figures when cleaning up the Legos in the basement.

These were some of his favorites that Johnny saved away. Among them a bat, "bone guy", ninja and diver. I like the boxer with an army hat.

I'd say the 12 years aging is appropriate. That's about the age he probably as when he saved them. Haha.

A yummy little raw cookie dough minion snack.

It’s always interesting trying to fix the mailbox after it gets taken out at 55mph...

I beat it back into shape and spliced the post back together. The offending car didn't stop but there were shards of his bumper and wheel well all over ditch...

It’s always fun to see the cousins enjoying time together.

Especially when they go out of the way to. Johnny came over once he got off work after having to go home first and change his clothes.

The evolution of the drum and one man band.

Johnny managed to find a bass drum, snare, and kick pedals that he and I could put all together to let him be a one man band.  By the end of the video, I think he is figuring out how to separate his feet from his hands enough to make it work! ;)

Those are some nice looking and yummy Oreos!

Are you getting tired of Sweetwater pictures yet...?!

Here is Johnny enjoying the synthesizer board.  You can see all the pictures we took by following this link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/dwbarton/albums/72157715131516256

I guess pepper decided I wasn’t getting ready for bed fast enough and fell asleep waiting.

With a little ingenuity and work, we “affixed” the pedals to Johnny’s drums

I think I could enjoy making music this way...!

Reflections...

I thought the piano and sound wall made a good combo.

Building out a proof of concept

It took a little bit of thinking and trying to find something to make a kick pedal setup for both a bass cajon and a snare drum. But it looks like Johnny is getting there with this setup...

Just a cool wall

I guess these are some kind of sound baffles in the piano section.

Johnny having fun trying some stuff out in the bass room...

Johnny and I on the way in to Sweetwater Sound.

It's a music store that's big enough to be a mall!

It sure was fun to get family together and laugh into the evening!

Thanks Susan! And Happy Birthday Laura!

Susan’s hand!

I think she stole the whole deck in her first hand of "The Game that Shall Not Be Named..."

Good times at Susan’s house last night as we celebrated Laura’s birthday!

Johnny and I made a random stop at a reservoir on our road trip this weekend.

Driving under water...? ;)

The road between two reservoirs. It makes for a cool picture.

I got the railing reinstalled at my mother in-laws.

I really like the way the new look turned out.