The male gender has the ability to live life without ever outgrowing their childhood pastimes. My Mom always says, “Men are just big kids with more expensive toys” and I couldn’t agree more. I hear stories of Ryan’s childhood and how he knew the name of all the Hot Wheel cars and spent hours lining them up just perfectly until he was satisfied. That little twinkle of his obsessed still lives in him except now it’s displayed in the form of life sized automobiles and 4×4 trucks and at times consumes his every thought.
Well, on Saturday, a group of friends got together for a little rivalry game of flag football San Diego v. Manhattan Beach. I love that no matter how old boys get they still know how to dig into that childhood pocket of memories and discover the enjoyment of simple play.
Commentary from Ryan:
I’ll be turning 30 this week and maybe its old age setting in but getting out to the park and playing some football with friends at the park was a huge deal. In order for the game to go off the following things had to happen:
- months of back and forth emails with lots of shit talking
- tons of follow up calls and texts
- a challenging team driving all the way up from San Diego
- bottle service and “tables” reserved at Bugaloo where the winners would be celebrated and the losers would be disgraced
- cones and flags (along with promises that we wouldn’t be playing tackle)
- not getting too hammered on Friday night at Fitz’s party (because of course we get hang overs now)
All of that happened, a miracle, particularly the last bullet.
Saturday morning came and a very familiar group of guys came together. The guys who were playing were literally the exact same guys who I used to play with all the time, when we were about half our current age. The pregame activities of lacing up the cleats, joking, running patterns and throwing the ball back and forth to warm up all came and went.
But where was our challenging team from San Diego?
Well, they were late. Why were they late? Becasue Gib and Bob had to get coffee.
Once they finally arrived we were not surprised to see that they also took the the time to put on eye black that was in the shape of little pistols. Flag football was played and we of course smashed them, Manhattan Beach 45 – San Diego 26. Hopefully this will be annual tradition. Big ups to DJ who played even though he starts professional baseball soon. The effort was definitely worth it and the celebration at Bugaloo was glorious.
However, this picture was much easier to take with less technical knowledge required. Expose for the sky, then underexpose it by about 1 stop and ta-da! In fact, I grabbed this as I was getting back into the car in a rush because Ry was blocking the alley. I love the colors of this as it looks like a photo featured on a classic California postcard.
Mix & match bikini example shown at its best! I am pretty sure Ashley is one of the queen’s of this trend and pulls it off everytime! I guess that is a result of living at the beach her whole life and needed to keep it fresh! 
The 
Our Footprints..... 
