The weekend of June 5-7 marked the annual family get together. This year the Saturday doings were held in Colorado Springs, CO, and hosted by Caitlin Diffley. Several of us also gathered the evening before at the home of Sky and Nick Orton in Denver. The weather was pretty much perfect all weekend, and a good time was had by all.
On Friday evening Nick and Sky hosted a drop-in dinner at their home for all of us who were flying into Denver, which was most everybody except those who lived in the Colorado Springs area. The next day we all drove down to the picnic which was held on the Air Force Academy campus. After several hours of eating and catching up with folks we only see once a year, Bill Diffley (Class of 73) took us on a tour of the Academy. Early evening saw the group re-gather at Caitlin's home for dinner. Unfortunately, prior commitments required me to head out before the evening activities got going, so if anything exciting happened there someone else will have to report on it.
Unless more showed up in the evening after I left, we had 30 attendees this year. As in the past, I have listed them by generation in the table below. There may be a couple of names that you are unfamiliar with in the list. Mary Corbett is an aunt of Pamela Diffley, out from New York; Fiona Roberts is a 3rd cousin of Mary Pat Kraemer who was visiting from Scotland.
| Generation 1 | Generation 2 | Generation 3 | Generation 4 |
| Mary Corbett | Jim Diffley | Chad Hardcastle | Bruce Hardcastle |
| Mary Pat Kraemer | Pilar Hardcastle | Zoe White | |
| Rich Kraemer | Curt Hardcastle | Gehrig White | |
| Eileen Woods | Nick Orton | Ava McCombs | |
| Marianne Gazzano | Sky Orton | John McCombs | |
| Joanne Irvin | Justin White | ||
| Denise Fletcher | Laura White | ||
| Ed Fletcher | Christina Kraemer | ||
| Bill Diffley | Simon Bergauer | ||
| Pamela Diffley | Caitlin Diffley | ||
| Fiona Roberts | Acacia McCombs | ||
| Jim Trenkle | Richard McCombs |
Here are the pictures I took at the gathering.
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Here's the group photo taken at the picnic. Everyone is here except the McCombs family who had left early, and Jim Diffey who wasn't able to make it until the evening.
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Our hostess, Caitlin Diffley, and our youngest attendee, Bruce Hardcastle, born last November 25th.
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Ava and John McCombs, up from Santa Fe with mom and dad.
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Justin White, with daughter, Zoe.
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Bill Diffley, master of the chicken grill.
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Rich Kraemer was the burger man. Nice burger flipper you got there, Rich.
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From the left: DeeDee Fletcher holding grandson, Bruce Hardcastle; Nick and Sky Orton; Acacia and Richard McCombs. |
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Curt Hardcastle. Have MBA, Will Travel.
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Caitlin holding Bruce again, with Bruce's parents, Chad and Pilar Hardcastle.
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Fiona Roberts and Mary Corbett. Fiona is a 3rd cousin of Mary Pat Kramer on the O'Connell side of the family. She was visiting from Scotland. Mary Corbett is Pamela Diffley's aunt, visiting from New York.
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Pamela Diffley, Marianne Gazzano, Eileen Woods.
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Mary Pat Kraemer.
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Simon Bergauer and Christina Kraemer (Mr. & Mrs.), with Joanne Irvin and Chad Hardcastle in the background.
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Sis and Bro: Joanne Irvin and Bill Diffley.
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Ed Fletcher.
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Eileen Woods with Gehrig, Laura, and Justin White.
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Bruce Hardcastle, well disguised.
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This was part of the group at Sky and Nick Orton's home on Friday evening. Several more folks were yet to arrive, but I wanted to get a picture before the ravenous herd tore the food apart. From the left: Nick, Sky, John McCombs, Ava McCombs, Acacia McCombs, Eileen Woods, Marianne Gazzano, Richard McCombs, and Joanne Irvin.
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These last three pictures were taken on the tour of the Air Force Academy. This looks up at the campus from the parking lot. The campus is huge, spread over several square miles nestled in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains behind Colorado Springs.
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This surreal-looking structure is the chapel, easily the most dominant structure on the campus. The largest part of this building houses a large non-denominational chapel which we couldn't go into because it was being used for a wedding. The downstairs part has several smaller facilities for specific religions.
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This is the interior of the Catholic chapel which is in the downstairs part of the main building. |
