2010 Trips and Special Events

The first of a large list of trips and events in 2010 was our first trip to Cabo San Lucas in Mexico. It was a chance to reconnect with good friends, the Watkins and the Vasilevs. In addition to great fun, we learned a lot from the previously retired Watkins (iPhone nuggets and how gross Crazy Larry looks in his Borat man-kini) as well as sharing a great fishing trip with Mur Vasilev.

Next was a Spring trip to the Austin area for a major Curnutt family reunion which had over 90 attendees off the Lake Travis in the Texas Hill Country. The attendees included the descendents of my grandfather (Christopher Columbus Floyd Curnutt, otherwise known as "Cheesie") including first cousins and my sisters’ and their families. We also had an opportunity to spend time with our good friends Leroy and Sue Bradley near Gruene, Texas as well as some time in one of our favorite cities, San Antonio.

A few weeks later, we were back in Texas for the wedding of Randy’s late best friend’s (Clyde Martin) daughter, Jenny, to Kelly Terrell in a fantastic Texas style venue, near Waco. We were able to reconnect with Randy’s other good high school friend, Danny Manes and his wife Judy and his Annapolis buddy, the "Ding Dong Daddy of Dumas, Texas" (Jim Devin) and his wife Sandy.

The big event was right after, the wedding of our daughter Kelly to Danny Simpton in Las Vegas. She met Danny in Udhailiyah, Saudi Arabia, 25 years ago when we were assigned there with Exxon. A few of the kids of those days attended along with family from both the Kris’ and Randy’s side of the family and Danny’s mom and his son, Stewart.

A key event of the summer was the visit by Kris' cousin, Arild Molden and his family (wife Bente, sons Martin and Hakum). This was their first visit to the USA and what great fun we had. We had expected that language might be a bit of a barrier but soon found that they spoke better English than Randy! The only time language got in the way was a discussion between Randy and Arild - it turns out that one does not go and take a nap in a restroom. They had a side trip to Disneyland but in Washington, we visited a large list of places with time in Seattle shopping, visiting the locks, "Ride the Ducks", and a Mariner professional baseball game to name a few. Outside Seattle, we visited Grandma Anderson's (Arild's grandfather's sister) old homestead, Mount Rainier and a few events as festivals in Bremerton and Gig Harbor. The main event, the "reunion", was at our place in Port Orchard with as many family members as we could gather including Mary Jo (Anderson) Oldfield.

Next was a great fishing day in Puget Sound set up by Elisha's (Keegan's wife) father, David Joseph. David, Keegan, Kyle and Randy were able to have a great fishing day during king salmon season. All but Kyle (who did catch a dog fish) caught salmon.

In October, we spent a week at a timeshare with good friends, Kay Triplett and her husband, Al, in the Dominican Republic. The venue, Moon Palace, is a luxury hotel partly owned by Hard Rock, with 6-7 restaurants, more pools than one can count, in an all inclusive setting. We did "veg out" but were able to see a few sights by “zipping” from place to place.

That is the list to date but we still have trips back to Vegas and Cabo planed before year end.