Great Start to Summer

 

I have been using my new B&D toaster oven nearly every weekend to bake cookies and cake and keep the heat out of the house so it is working well and we are enjoying homemade baked goods often.

I enjoyed a wonderful Mother’s Day with flowers from Dawn and Vince and phone calls from Todd, Shane and Cerét plus we went to Cracker Barrel for lunch after church.

 

For Vince's birthday we went to Olive Garden for supper and then back home for presents and to play Train.  For once Vince didn't win, Dawn did!

We had been talking about going down to one car since we just don’t drive the truck all that often (we’ve had it 18 months and have put 500 miles on it plus Larry discovered we can rent a truck from Lowe’s for $19 a day plus gas), and had thought about looking at new ones on Mother’s Day but ended up going to look on Monday May 10 and ended up trading in both the Smart car and the truck on a new 2020 Niro EV. So far we are very happy with our decision especially when we drive by the Costco gas station and see the long lines to get gas! With any new car, one has to add items to make it ‘theirs’ so we now have Tux-Mats installed. They are from Canada and really really nice! We had WeatherTech in the Smart but they didn’t show any for our new car so Larry found the Tux-Mats on the net and liked what he saw. I see Weather-Tech now has mats for our car but the back seat mats we have cover the front of the seat to protect from kids kicking it so we are very happy.

  Back seat Tux-Mat showing it covering the front of the seat

                          Front Tux-Mat

 

Larry had made more changes/improvements to the MH  and re-did the vents in the ceiling panel in the living area so we are getting a much better flow of cold air for more even temperature in the MH.

 Getting the cover ready to put back up (that was the hardest part!)

The solar panels are doing their job and the entire electric bill for both the Leones and Clarks was $60 which we happily paid.

Since we are staying in Phoenix fulltime now, Larry was concerned about the large walk gate and the post it closes on getting too much 'traffic' so he is putting in supports to make sure the gate doesn't cause any problems when it closes. He didn't want to attach it to the house because that would vibrate the house wall. The gate is next to the front bedroom and when Bethany was sleeping there she could hear the gate close and Larry doesn't want anyone to 'feel' it close too.

We ended the month with a going away pool party for our oldest granddaughter and family. It was a great time and the first time in six and a half years we were all together. At one time there were 13 people in the pool and it wasn’t crowded.

  Grandsons Shane and Alex and great granddaughter Anna

The family just before we all departed.  This was a one shot deal and it came out great!