Interesting month

Our daughter, Dawn and Vince took Bethany, Colby and Krista to Disneyland for the first week of January to celebrate Dawn’s 50th birthday and we got to take care of their three cats while they were gone.  They had a fun time but unfortunately Colby got sick the last day and still is suffering a cough.  January 10 we met at Sweet Tomatoes so we could celebrate Dawn’s birthday.

Dawn's birthday cake at Sweet Tomatoes

Dawn was pleased with this gift, saying it would be great for her new living room

January 13 I did another burger shop at one of the best burger places in town and we enjoyed the evening meal with leftovers, always a nice thing.

We rarely go to the movies but Larry received movie passes for Christmas so we went to see “13 Hours” opening day.  It is a movie everyone of voting age in America should see!

January 19 Larry went to the VA to pick up his new hearing aids.  They are very cool as he can dial what he wants to hear, (cut out wind noise while driving, restaurants, and each ear is independently controlled by his cell phone), they work on bluetooth and he can hook up the TV to his hearing aids.  He is quite thrilled with them and said this is the best he has heard in many years.

On my birthday we met Cathy and Daryl Devers at Village Inn for brunch and had a great visit.  They are from our home town in IN and Cathy and I were next door neighbors.  Since it was Wednesday we all had free pie.  That evening I used my coupon from Dairy Queen for a free Blizzard so it was a good birthday.

Daryl and Cathy at Village Inn

The house is coming along nicely and the cabinets and countertops are in.  Vince enlisted the help of some friends and cleaned up the front yard.  It looks like an entirely different place!

Cleaned up front yard

What it looked like before clean up

Kitchen cabinets with the counter tops installed and the floor in place

Neat 'rug look' in the dining room

Sunday January 31 we again met at Sweet Tomatoes to celebrate, this time my birthday and Colby and Krista were able to attend.  We had a good evening and closed the place down, being just about the last patrons to leave.  We hadn’t been home long before a big front came in with 30 mph wind gusts and rain.  The temperature dropped 15º in an hour and the MH did some 'rocking and rolling'.  Fortunately Larry had had the foresight to bring all the awnings in as well as our flags before the 'big event' hit when our weather radio along with both cell phones went off warning of a severe thunderstorm with thunder and lightning and possible wind gusts of 60 mph and hail.

My birthday celebration at Sweet Tomatoes

Happy New Year 2016!

December went by quickly with lots of things happening.  We went to the property to mark exactly where we wanted our sewer line dug and that happened on Dec 8.  We did some negotiations and were able to get the price down some which is always good! 

along east side of the house where our MH will be parked, showing our new sewer line

Larry went to the VA to have his labs done before his annual appointment and discovered his 'new' doctor had quit!  So he had to re-schedule with another doctor for his annual.

Since we were having 'issues' with our micro/convection oven we decided to purchase a new one and ended up ordering a GE Profile from Home Depot since they would deliver it for free.  It arrived Saturday Dec 12 and Larry worked until midnight that night to get the old one out and the new one in. 

Old micro out and getting ready for the new one

New micro in using Larry's jack and stool to hold it up so we could get it in place

It has two shelves for the convection part and I used them for our Christmas dinner, cutting down on use time as I would not have been able to bake everything at the same time in the old one.  Also the ham I bought would have been too big to fit in the old one so God knew and had us purchase the new one even though the old one was still working.  I discovered upon reading the instructions for the new one that if something gets under the turntable, it can cause sparking and that is what was happening with the old one.

We had electrical problems with the pole and our energy system would not allow electricity through, although we were unaware of a problem until the generator tried to start!  (One disadvantage to having an inverter  that automatically switches over when shore power isn’t available)  Larry was able to get the generator started by using the 'booster switch' to connect both the chassis and house batteries.  That incident told us it is time to replace the chassis batteries as they are over five years old.  Larry then checked the breaker at the pole and discovered one side was bad so he replaced the breaker and we are back in business.

We also had a water main leak in our backyard and had a royal mess for several days after the plumbers came out to fix it.  They waited several days to make sure the leak was repaired before covering it all back up.

Water main leak in our backyard, waiting to see if it was stopped OK before covering it up

We both sang in the choir for our church’s Christmas Eve service and it was a lovely service.  It was really neat during the candlelight part to watch the darkened church slowly start 'glowing' as the candles were lit starting at the front and going to the back.

Christmas day we were again at grandson Colby and Krista’s new home and we had a wonderful time!  There were 11 of us and we played several games that were hilarious!  We didn’t get home until 11 PM.

Colby and Krista discovering their Christmas present was a week's trip to Disneyland (a surprise for Krista)

Dec 29 Larry had an audio appointment at the main VA in Phoenix and he is thrilled as he is getting two new hearing aids that will fit inside his helmet and are bluetooth enabled. They will also hook up to the TV.   Since we received a gift card to Valle Luna for Christmas we stopped on the way home from the VA (Tuesday is Senior 2 for 1 day) and enjoyed chimichangas.  Since it was still early we stopped at Sam’s Club to return something and as we were leaving ran into Tom and Adele Bearup from Alaska.  Seems we run into them at Sam’s quite often!  We sat down at the Snack tables and caught up with them for the next two hours.  It is always good to see old friends.

We ended the year by again going to the Marty Goetz concert with my friend Judy.  It was extra special this year (it was the 27th year for his New Year’s Eve concert) since his daughter sang with him.  What an awesome way to ring in the New Year!

Misha Goetz Holtz and her dad Marty Goetz

Marty Goetz at the piano

Let the party begin!

Well I was wrong about the timing of the stucco. The drywall has to go on first (the pounding on the walls could loosen the stucco) and the doors need to be in so the stucco can butt up to the door casings. The drywall is on and taped and yesterday the doors arrived so I think the next step is the stucco but I’m not sure.

Contractor, Rob, looking at new patio door he just delivered

Not much was done Thanksgiving week since it was a short week for most folks.

The beginning of November I did a sub shop on a rainy evening but the sandwiches were wonderful!

I have been having problems with my eyes so I have been to the ophthalmologist twice in November and the diagnosis is ocular migraines with glaucoma. I’m using eye drops in my left eye and trusting they will help.

Veteran’s Day we met Dawn, Vince and Bethany at Chili’s and the fellows had a free meal. We went at 4:30 PM and that was a great time as we were seated immediately. We had a great meal and Dawn and Vince came to our place for cheesecake for dessert.

November 15 after church we met at the new house for a 'first picnic'.

Dawn getting things ready for our "picnic" in the new house
 

Bethany and Vince getting ready to chow down at our picnic

It was the first time Colby and Krista had seen the house.  Our church had a Harvest Feast on Saturday November 21 and there was so much food left over everyone could have had another meal and there was still leftovers.  We had a fun time and met some new people.

Bethany, Colby and Krista at our 'picnic' in the new house with the drywall installed

November 19 we took the motorhome to Camping World in Avondale to 'rotate the tires' as sitting too long in not good for it. We had a good trip and made a couple of purchases so Larry could make a repair on our fresh water hose reel. He took it out and re-did it and re-plumbed it so it no longer leaks and the rusty bottom is all freshly painted. It looks great like usual as he does a great job!

Larry working in the fresh water bay repairing the hose reel (minus the hose)

Water bay with new hose installed on the repaired and re-plumbed hose reel

Our next door neighbor (84 years old) had a flat tire so Larry changed it for her and also repaired her kitchen faucet and since he wouldn’t take anything for it she gave him a Lemon Meringue Pie from Village Inn for Thanksgiving. It was really good and I like it because he shared with me even though he did the work.


November 22 we went to Colby and Krista’s new house for their Housewarming Party. Their house is really decorated nicely and even though there were 50 people at the party it did not seem crowded. Thanksgiving we were back at Colby and Krista’s and had a wonderful meal with 12 attending. The younger ones had fun playing a game on the TV while us 'older ones' had good conversation. The 'party' lasted six hours.

Colby and Krista's Housewarming Party

Thanksgiving dinner at Colby and Krista's  

Another shot of our Thanksgiving meal

November 29 we again had a meal at the church after the morning service to celebrate 'family'. We had pulled pork sandwiches, potato salad, baked beans and cookies. They had a bounce house for the kids so they had a lot of fun even though the temperature was cool (60º).

In re-reading this it sounds like all we did was eat and party all month!

Wonderful AZ weather at last!

I woke up  Oct 7 to find red spots that I thought were bug bites and tried to figure out what kind of bug would bite me on just one leg above the knee and no where else. 

my 'bug' bites

After four days of confusion, a friend suggested it looked like a rash to her and that set me on a different course.  The following Monday I went to the doctor and she confirmed my then suspicion that I had shingles. 

Full blown shingles

Fortunately God has been very good to me and I had a mild case with very little pain and there are just a few flat spots left.  Another friend said shingles are caused by a vitamin B deficiency so I immediately started taking Vitamin B so hopefully I won’t have a re-occurance as another friend said she got shingles four different times!

We finally closed on the Prescott house and now we have to make a final accounting and mail it to all the beneficiaries for their approval and then everything can be divided up and closing checks sent.  It will be nice when everything is said and done so we can get on with life.

Larry has been enjoying his bike since the weather has turned so nice finally.  Larry has been helping put in a central vacuum in the new house and he hurt his thumb working on it and ended up spending seven hours at the VA to get it looked at.  He has return visits scheduled for Dec.

Working as a team to get the pipes for the central vac cut

Outlet in the hall for the central vacuum

Since the phone plan we are on is changing Nov 1 we can be grandfathered in by upgrading our phones now so we both have new i-phones, 6s and 6s+.  This means we still get unlimited data which is a BIG deal for us since our MiFi uses around 50 GB a month.

Oct 24 we went to the community dinner and learned there are some serious problems and there will be no more community dinners from now on.  In years past the park paid for free Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners but that is no more.  It is a shame that people cannot communicate with one another so feelings are hurt and then everyone suffers.

The house is coming along quite nicely and they should be able to start the stucco spray on Monday. 

Nice front door with Larry checking out the doorbell wire, ready for the stucco

                             

House from the road ready for stucco

                                 

The ride from our place to the new house is really nice on the bike now.  Larry has been doing some 'horse trading' and we were sorry we didn’t go on the bike one night last week as it would have been a really nice ride.

Are we in the home stretch yet?

The first week of Sept. was nice temperature wise and we took another night ride on the bike to Carefree Hwy and back and the temperature was a nice 78º.  We are looking forward to cooler weather so we can actually SEE the countryside when we ride!

The second week of Sept. we received an offer on the Prescott house and after several back and forth’s we finally agreed to a price and are waiting to close in the next week or so.  It will be nice to have one 'stress factor' out of the way.

I first had a pick up pizza shop and then I had a pizza delivery shop and third we went to a Mexican restaurant in Scottsdale for a nice evening meal for another shop.  I have decided three shops so close together in two weeks was more than I care to do again so I am planning on taking the month of October off from shops.  We did enjoy the food though!

Pizza from the pick up shop

When I went out to dump the MH I found the black valve leaking so we quickly ordered new valves through Amazon and they were delivered the next day (with Prime) so that evening Larry  replaced both the black and the gray waste valves since they are such a pain to replace.  It got dark before he finished so I 'helped' by holding a light.  He was really glad when that job was done and hopefully it won’t need to be done again anytime soon.  He last replaced them in 2008.  It is one of the “less desirable things” about RVing but not enough to make us quit.

Our five year old printer died (it was printing brown instead of black even though we put in a new black cartridge) so we bought a new one.  So far we are pleased with it and it is much faster than the old new.

Dawn and Vince’s new house broke ground on August 24 and on September 24 it looked like the following picture.  Once they started on it, it has gone like gangbusters!  Larry was talking to one of the framers and he knew our son Todd from Schuck & Sons days in 1990 and was there when Todd was injured on the job.  Talk about a small world!

What the property looked like Aug 24, 2015

Lowering a tress onto the roof with a crane

The property on Sept 24, 2015

We ended the month by meeting our grandson Alex and his mother at the bank to get a bond settled that his great grandmother bought him in 1996.  It was good to see them.

Heat on the downhill?

We started off August by celebrating Bethany’s 21st birthday at Olive Garden.  While her birthday was the end of July we could not all get together until Sunday the 2.  We had a great time and just about closed the place down.  We also celebrated Krista’s birthday and instead of cake, both 'girls' wanted pie so Bethany had a lemon meringue pie and Krista had a pecan pie, both very good.  

Birthday girl at Olive Garden

                              

Bethany's birthday 'pie'

Colby and Krista closed on their new house on Friday Aug 7 and started moving that night.  We had told them we would help them UNLOAD since their apt. was on the second floor with no elevator.  It took them a lot longer to load than they anticipated since many of their boxes were books and they had to go down step by step.  It took them 7 hours to load and with Dawn and our help only 1 1/2 hours to unload.  They both had the next week off to unpack and get situated.  Their new house is very lovely.

Kitchen in Colby and Krista's new house on move in day

Our realtor called on Aug 11 to say the house in Prescott had been broken into and the central vac was stolen from off the garage wall.  The door locks on the slider door and the side garage door were broken and the door knob to the side garage door was missing.  That door standing open was what alerted a neighbor that something was wrong and they called our realtor.  Larry quickly called Doyle who painted the house and asked him to see about securing the house as soon as possible.  He was able to get both doors repaired and secured that evening.  We tried to get rez for a campground in Prescott but all were full up so we ended up going to Verde Valley in Cottonwood for nine days.  Cottonwood is about 5-10º cooler during the day and 20º cooler at night than Phoenix so it was a nice break from the oppressive heat of Phoenix.  We took just the bike and went to Prescott via Jerome on the 20th and then returned by way of I-17 after meeting with Doyle.  Our realtor was away on a mini vacation after being in the hospital for a few days, so we did not see him.  We enjoyed our time in Verde Valley.  The views there are awesome.  They were having power issues so they restricted the 'A' section we were in to only 10 sites open so it was really quiet.  One morning I awoke to an odd sound and when I looked out the door saw a hot air balloon had landed just across the street from us!

Looking out our front door

                                   

The view I had each morning for my devotion time at Verde Valley

 Friday night we went to the campground’s restaurant for the Fish Fry and to hear The Hired Hands Band.  We have been following them for 15 years when Molly was just a little girl of five.  She is now a very talented young lady as she plays five different instruments.

Molly, Jesse and Michele- The Hired Hands Band

                                                              
Vince called us on Aug 18 to say they had their permit to build finally and it would start Monday Aug 24.  I told him if we had known all it took was for us to leave town, we would have left weeks before!

We had the MH washed and hand waxed on Tuesday Aug 25 since it has been over a year since it was last waxed.  Four hours after the fellow was finished we had a downpour that lasted well into the night.  At least the motorhome was 'protected' even if the nice wash job didn’t last very long.  It was a very reasonable price and was done with RO water since the water at Verde Valley is extremely hard.  Rain water is 'soft' so it didn’t take much to touch up the few spots Wednesday morning before we left.

When we returned to Phoenix on the 26th we stopped at Copper Star Indoor Shooting Range in Camp Verde so Larry could 'sight in' his new rifle and scope.  It is the only 100 yd indoor range in the state.  Larry 'said' we would stop for an hour but it was three hours before we left.  I was talking to the range master while Larry was on the range.  He is a retired Eugene, OR police officer so we were talking about all the neat places in OR that we both have visited.  He said he was last in Eugene in July 2015 at Premier RV Park and because the temps. were near 100º which is unusual for there, that park was having power issues with everyone running their A/Cs all the time.

Larry's rifle and new scope that he sighted in at Copper Star

We ended the month by going to Golden Corral to celebrate Larry’s birthday and our 55th anniversary on Sunday Aug 30.  Then Monday Aug 31 we made two trips to the property, the first at 9 AM to meet with the contractor and septic fellow.  The inspector was just leaving as we arrived and he had approved everything so the contractor said they may be able to pour the footers that afternoon which they did around 2 PM.  We made it up there in time to see the concrete truck washing up.  They will be back in the morning to finish up.  Once the permit was issued, things are really starting to hop.  Hopefully it will continue to move along smoothly.

Larry's candles in two different cakes

Vince and Bethany at Golden Corral

 

Colby and Krista at Golden Corral

Ellen and Dawn at Golden Corral

First footers poured on the new property

Revisiting old places

The A/C on Larry’s Man Cave has made a world of difference!  Where the inside temperature was running from 110º to 116º it now is a pleasant 84º and he is able to spend the time doing his projects without “cooking”.

Larry putting the new A/C in the roof of his Man Cave

Cover that shows inside the Man Cave

We took another midnight bike ride out towards Lake Pleasant.  We returned on I-17 and could immediately feel the different the pavement made with the heat radiating off the pavement.

July 4 we attended the park dinner and Dawn and Vince joined us.  Along with the brats, country fries and beans we had birthday cake, celebrating everyone who had a birthday in May, June and July.

Vince and Dawn at our 4th of July park dinner

We spent a week in Dewey, AZ just to get out of the heat for a few days and it was wonderful!  We took just the MH and the bike.  It was the first time for the new bike on the re-done bike rack and although it did fine getting there and back, Larry has been re-doing it since to make it 'better' since he is a perfectionist.  While we were in Dewey we went to Larry’s Mom’s house twice and met with our realtor for an open house.  We spent Saturday with the Guthries, friends from many years ago and had a great time catching up, studying the Torah, watching a video and enjoying a bar-b-que dinner.

sorry for the fuzz but a picture of the lovely table for our meal with the Guthries

Sunday morning we went to the park’s church service and then went out to eat.  After we came back home, there was a knock on our door and there were friends from OR Coaches for Christ who we last saw in 2005!  I had wondered what happened to them (they went to AK) so it was good to see them again and catch up with what was going on in their lives.  God is good all the time!

On Tuesday while we were in Dewey, we took the bike for a ride to Jerome and ate lunch at a Bar-b-que  place.  As we came out it looked like it might rain so we hurried to leave.  We had about three drops of rain on us but from the looks of the sky behind us we just missed a storm so we were very grateful.  We stopped at another RV park to look around and if we go back north again we will try this RV park as it is less expensive and we should be able to get satellite TV which we could not get in the Dewey RV park because of the trees.  At least they had cable so we did have some TV although not the one channel I watch on Wednesday.

Larry in Jerome looking down at the outhouse that people try to throw coins into!

Outhouse in Jerome with lots of coins around it

Our meal in Jerome

Our spot in Dewey, AZ with the bike loaded for our return trip to Phoenix

We returned to Phoenix on July 16 and so far have been fortunate to have 'somewhat' cooler weather and only one day of rain.  There were actually two days in a row where the temperature didn’t reach 100º!   Of course the rain cools things off but also makes it more humid.   Larry was able to sell one of his projects for a nice profit and immediately ordered a scope for another one of his projects.  All these projects keep him busy and his mind sharp.

Back in Phoenix so Larry can improve the bike rack