The Work is Completed and it’s Time for Fun!

With the patio pour complete, we had Saturday and Sunday for fun with the kids.  Logan wanted to go to a team roping event in Goodyear, so we headed that way in three vehicles.

Here are a few photos from the event.

There was no way we could convince Eric to sit on a horse by himself at first, so big brother Logan got on first to help him.

With Eric’s confidence built up a bit, Logan dismounted and left him on the horse by himself.  From left to right:  Eric on the horse, Butch just to the right of Eric’s hand, Logan, Gary, Peggy and me.

On Sunday, we headed to Picacho to Rooster Cogborn’s Ostrich Ranch.  Once again, Eric was a little scared of the animals, but overall, I think he had a good time.

Here he is feeding the goats.

and the deer.

And here are the ostriches waiting for their next meal.

Since we had last been at the ostrich ranch, they’ve added something new.  That is the lorikeet viewing and feeding area.  When we paid our admission fee, we each received feed for the ostriches and deer and also a small container of nectar for the lorikeets.  When you enter their enclosure, they land on anyone and everyone carrying their nectar.

Here are Bailie, Ken, Logan, and Butch.

The lorikeets also landed on Peggy.

Eric used my camera to take a photo of Butch and Logan.

Three lorikeets were after the nectar in Bailie’s hand.

Butch and Logan left for Cheyenne around 3am Monday morning, and Peggy’s brother Gary drove her and Bailie and Eric to the airport around 5am.  Needless to say, we chose to sleep through their departures.

Concrete Poured for the Patio Extension

The concrete truck arrived early Friday morning with 4 yards for the patio pour.  Since there was no way for the truck to get in the backyard, wheelbarrows were used by Peggy’s brother Gary who showed up early to help out and Logan to deliver mud to the patio.

Here’s Butch waiting for the next wheelbarrow load of mud.

Gary dumps a load of mud.

Logan unloads his wheelbarrow load.

Butch and Logan use a 2x4 to even out the mud.

And here’s a couple of photos of Butch doing the finishing work.

We sure appreciate all the hard work of Butch, Logan and Gary on our patio extension!

Setting Forms for the Patio Extension

Butch and Logan arrived early Wednesday evening, and we put them to work Thursday morning setting the forms for the extension to our patio.

The forms have been set.

Butch and Ken placed a PVC pipe with holes in it next to the house for future termite treatments.

They added an extension to the sewer cleanout for future changes.

And the trench gets filled again.

After that work was completed, we all went to In ‘n Out Burger in Casa Grande.  Butch had never been to one, but Logan had and was anxious to try it again.  Later that evening Butch and Logan headed to Phoenix to pick up Peggy, Bailie, and Eric.  They wouldn’t be back until the wee hours of the morning, so we chose not to wait up for them.

Visits with Friends

 

When not working on the house, we’ve been visiting with friends.  On February 12th, we met Diane and Andy for lunch in Casa Grande and had a good visit with them.  We met them during our Alaska trip in 2009 and this is the first time we’ve been able to meet up with them since then.  They’re getting close to having a lot at the SKP park in Casa Grande so we should be able to visit a lot more once that happens.

Then our friends Bruce and Nena arrived for a visit on the 13th and 14th.  We all had dinner in the house on their first evening here and made plans for the next day to go to the SKP lunch in Casa Grande followed with a trip to the Casa Grande Ruins.

Bruce and Nena continued their trip east on Wednesday morning and we did some last minute shopping on preparation for the arrival of our son Butch and grandson Logan later that day.

RV Renovators

We’ve continued to stay busy working on the house and getting ready for a visit from our son and his family.  Ernie and Vivian, friends from Spokane Elks Lodge, were in Casa Grande and drove down for a visit and dinner one night.  On February 7th, we loaded up the RV and drove to RV Renovators in Mesa, AZ where we had made arrangements to have our front windshields replaced.  They were badly damaged from our two trips to Alaska and we were ready to have a clean line of sight out the windows again.  Here’s the RV with the new windshields.

The yard at their service facility is very packed with not too much room to move around.  They could really use a larger yard.  I wondered if this airplane was in for a renovation.

This 5th wheel sitting in the yard is 50’ long and would make a good star in a remake of The Long, Long Trailer.  Ken did some research on the company that builds this trailer and they also make one that is 55’ long.

There was even an observatory in a neighboring yard.

Here is an idea of how they cram RV’s into their yard for work on them.

While in Mesa, we spent an afternoon and evening with Wayne and Karen from Moses Lake.  They had rented a home for a month to get away from the cold weather in Washington.  After the windshields had been installed, we had to wait 24 hours before moving.  After our wait, we returned to Arizona City.

Skydivers at Eloy, AZ

We felt like we needed to take a break from working on the house, so after lunch we headed to Eloy, AZ.  Our first stop was at the visitor center which is stocked with all kinds of good information, not only about the local area, but the rest of the state as well.  This is one of the better visitor centers at which we have stopped.  From there, we headed toward the Eloy Municipal Airport to see if we could see some skydiving.  There are a couple of them in this photo that just barely show up.

We saw numerous skydivers and watched for quite a long time.  It’s one spectator sport that is definitely a pain in the neck.

This building is set up for indoor skydiving.

Trucks pulling trailers with seating took the skydivers from the landing area to where they load the planes.

Then it was back to the house with a stop on the way at Baskin Robbins.  That was a nice cold treat on a hot day!

Arizona City–Unloading the Trailer and Furnishing the House

Here’s the RV set up on the vacant lot next to our house.  Ken has it set up so that we have full hookups.

When we were ready to finish unloading the utility trailer, Ken backed it into the garage so that we could take our time and not have it out in the open.  The garage was quite full!

Between other errands around the place, we got the trailer unloaded.  Here it is already to hookup and take on a furniture shopping trip.

Target had a good sale last week on chair pads for patio furniture so they took on a new look.

While visiting Glenn and Sheila the other day, she showed me a flyer for inexpensive furniture in Phoenix.  It was for a place that removes old furniture from hotels and motels then takes them to their warehouse to sell to the public.  We got an early start Friday morning and hooked the utility trailer up to the truck and headed to the furniture warehouse.  We weren’t sure what we were getting into and just felt like we were taking the trailer up there as a waste of our time.  I’m happy to say that we were wrong, and came back to the house with a trailer and truck loaded with enough furniture to stock the house.

We picked out a sofa sleeper and a couple of wall paintings behind it to the right.

Behind the sofa sleeper is a coffee table with a couple of end tables on top of it.

We found a recliner chair for Ken.

And a couple of table lamps which may end up in a bedroom or the living room.

We found some night stands for the master bedroom.

We picked out two queen size mattresses.

And two queen size box springs.

We also bought two bed frames.

On Saturday morning I decided to check out three garage/yard sales that were going on in town.  At the first one, I found James Michener’s Texas hardback in like new condition for $1.00 and bought that.  I didn’t find anything at the second sale that caught my interest and drove to the last one.  I hit the jackpot at that one!  All of the items on the counter to the left of the sink were $18.00!  There’s a coffee pot, toaster, and several bowls, salad plates, dinner plates, coffee cups, serving dishes and bowls.  I spent the rest of Saturday getting them cleaned up and put away.

On Saturday, we drove to Casa Grande and purchased bedding, curtains and lumber for Ken to build a workbench in the garage.  That afternoon, Ken installed the hardware for the curtains.  I spent the day Sunday doing laundry of the bedding and getting the bedrooms finished off while Ken built his workbench.  Glenn and Sheila stopped by and she gave me a bed skirt, etc. for one of the guest rooms….thanks, Sheila!

We’re ready to see what’s in store for us this next week.