Giving Thanks (11-27-15)

The few days before Thanksgiving were frantic with last minute details.  Every morning when I arrived at the house at 7 am, there were 12 or so trucks crowding the yard and street. Everyone from painters to cleaners and plumbers were all trying to get their part of the job finished.

Amidst all this chaos, our friends arrived.

 

These are special friends- you know- the kind who show up when you are at your busiest, and most stressed, and manage to reduce your burden instead of adding to it. The kind of friends who bring you lunch without being asked, and who say “dinner is at our place” for the 5th night in a row, because they know you are too tired and too stressed to think about food.  The kinds of friends who just start doing whatever needs to be done…

from building a fence…

…to spreading gravel, they helped us push our projects forward.

At the end of the work day their job was not over, no sir, they managed to entertain us and keep us laughing no matter how tired we were.





Julie was quickly elected “Reader of the Owner’s Manuals”. With all new appliances, we are constantly hearing beeping and whenever an appliance made a noise, the call went out for Julie to decipher its meaning.

I have been so tired, I can hardly remember what we did in the last week, so in addition to all of the above, Julie was even the ghost writer for this blog post! We sure are lucky to have friends like that.


After the first of our stuff arrived Tuesday, Wednesday was finally moving day.  We were all determined to be at the house for Thanksgiving.  We spent the day mostly transferring our stuff from the resort to the house, and unpacking a few things. By about lunchtime, Mike and Julie were able to move to their RV spot at the house.

The spacing worked out just how we wanted it to, with plenty of room, and a great view of the unfinished pool!

Our move was more complicated-

-we had to take the camper off the truck, use the truck to transfer all our stuff, and then put the hitch back in so we could move our trailer over-we backed it into it’s spot just as it was getting dark. 

Finally it was Thanksgiving Day!

We got the good news that Dave and Nancy would be coming back for the holiday, and they were our first guests in the new guest room!

Cooking a holiday dinner in a house that we had just moved into the previous day turned into a complete comedy and involved countless trips out to the camper and trailers.

All morning long questions abounded-

Where’s the colander?  In the trailer. No wait, in the camper.

Do we have a bowl that will fit the cranberry?  Check in those those boxes over there…No?  Look in Julie’s trailer for one.

How do you use the timer on the oven?  JULIE!!!!!

Did we bring over the butter?  Nope, gotta go get it in the trailer.

Where’s the cover to that pot?  Apparently its on the other moving van- the one that didn’t arrive.

After a few hours and much laughter, the meal was ready and as always, we had a great time.





After just one day of standing around the island in the kitchen, the decision was made that we needed bar stools ASAP, so off we all went on Friday, to Lowes, where the Black Friday price on barstools was awesome!






We women split off to visit the stores we were interested in, while the guys headed to Tractor Supply and Harbor Freight.  Once we were all back at he house, the project of the day was the assembly of the stools.

All too soon it was time for Dave and Nancy to leave.  We sure enjoyed having the driveway full of vehicles, and hope it will be full often!

Typical Havasu Weekend (10-30-15)

Its pretty normal for Havasu to have something going on most weekends.  They think nothing of shutting down Main Street to traffic in order to show off cars or boats. 













This past weekend it was cars.  Lots of cars.  We enjoyed walking the streets, looking at all the classic cars. 













The great weather and plentiful parking brings out the residents by the thousands.












Now that the weather is cooling off, the weekly swap meet has started back up again, and garage sales abound.  We’ve been keeping an eye out for anything we might need.



We also decided to extend our stay in the resort for another month, until the end of November.  It would be cheaper to stay at the Elks club, since we don’t need a full month, and the price went up where we are, but the fact that we won’t have to move all the stuff we have in the casita, and find a place to park the boat, makes it worth the extra money for us.

House Update

Things are really  moving along on the house right now.

The cement has been poured for the pool….

.. and the contractor has assured us it will be ready when the house is.  Awesome!

We have to slow down the curing process by watering the cement twice a day for almost a week.

Paul and I went to work on the wall as soon as the materials arrived. We started with 8 pallets of blocks for the wall.  Each block weighs 62 lbs, and there were 490 blocks. That means we moved 15 tons of rock.  And yes, I helped carry them.  The hardest part was the first layer- we had to make sure it was straight and level for all the subsequent tiers.



  It took us 4 days, but most of the wall is done.  We actually ran out of material, so when we get the next delivery we can finish each of the ends. 

In the meantime, the cement trucks were in the front yard, pouring the driveway.

These guys sure do work hard.

The finished product:

Inside the house, the tile work continues.

The front entryway medallion:

The guest bathroom:

and the master bath walk-in shower:

Much more to come next week!

Payson and Phoenix (09-07-15)

Labor Day Weekend.  What to do.  Many full time RVers know to avoid moving on this weekend if at all possible.  When we were boaters, we parked ourselves before the weekend, and didn’t move until it was over.  But these days, we travel in a truck camper, so theoretically, its easier to find places to park.

We started the weekend by heading to Phoenix. No One heads to Phoenix on Labor Day weekend, so finding a place to park was easy (Thanks for the tip, Sandie!)  Our goal was to window shop at MSI, a major supplier of tile, stone and  granite, etc. More on that later.

We are easily entertained when driving 300 miles in one day.  The shine on this tanker was quite impressive, and we enjoyed watching our reflection in the mirror like finish.






















Once our errands were complete, we headed for the hills of Payson, looking for relief from the heat.
Tonto Natural Bridge State Park was our first destination.  This park is so popular, we had to wait about 30 minutes just to enter, because the parking lots were full.  Once there, it was a fairly short hike down the trail to the base of the bridge.


This is one of the world’s largest travertine bridges, standing 150 feet wide, and 183 feet tall.  It’s a great hike for kids, with tons of exploring, and even the opportunity to swim. 





Back up on top, there were several viewpoints available to check out the bridge.  After an hour or so, the crowds got to us so we took off to find a place to spend the night.






Nearby Apache Sitgreaves National Forest has quite a bit of boon docking available, but again the crowds were quite amazing, even considering that it was a holiday weekend.

We did find a secluded spot to spend the night , but our hiking plans for the next day were abandoned when we couldn’t find a parking spot any where near a trail head. Soooooo, we headed back to Phoenix.

Doesn’t Dozer look like he’s a little nervous walking on a high shelf?

In reality, he was on the floor, stalking imaginary mice.

Since we knew we were headed to Phoenix, we had checked the inventory of the Phoenix Sears Outlet, and lo and behold, they had something we wanted. The oven we want is a GE Profile series 5000- but we had noted that if the 7050 model was on sale at a great price, we would really prefer that one.  Well, this Sears had the 9050 model on sale for less than the 5000 model. This store is a “scratch and dent” store so there is one small scratch on the bottom and that was it.

The main obstacle would be transport back to Havasu, but we’d had the foresight to put the hitch on the truck.  So, we rented the smallest U-Haul available. (although that sounds simple, its a whole other story…..)

We wracked our brains trying to think of something else we could buy, but in the end, the oven was the only cargo in the trailer.

We had an uneventful trek back to Lake Havasu with our treasure, and saved over $1000 on the oven!

House Update

Phoenix is where MS International is located, and MS International is where everyone in Havasu gets their stone and tile.  We’ve been struggling to come up with a back splash that we really like for the kitchen, and stonework we like for the exterior, and had decided a trip to Phoenix was warranted.   As a bonus, we got to check out the granite we want.

Blue Pearl is a little different, since it’s more in the gray tones than brown, but we already have a table made with blue pearl and we know we like it.

We arrived at MSI late in the day Friday, but we thought we’d have all day Saturday to wander around.  We didn’t realize they were closed all weekend. Thank goodness we decided to get a head start by taking a peek on Friday!

Luckily we saw a backsplash we liked right away.

There is a corresponding stone pattern that we can use as an accent on the front exterior of the house ( this picture really doesn’t do it justice) and to tie it all together, we will also use this stone on the spa surround.

We have very few decisions left to make.  I hope we don’t get bored, with no shopping to do.  Just kidding- once the septic is in, (hopefully next week) we can start our own projects on the exterior of the house.  The first one will be to build a small (30’ high) stacked wall along the side of the property.

Back at the house, the drywall is coming along.

The Sheetrock is all up, and the taping is done. They have started the sanding, but that will go fast because the  walls will be textured.   Wes says they will paint the interior next week!

The stilts look like fun- I can just picture myself landing gracefully on the floor if I try them!

As if the progress on the interior wasn’t enough, they are simultaneously working on the exterior.

“Brown coat” is what they call the first layer of stucco. They literally spray on the cement and then smooth it out to the texture they want.

It took a full two days to do the entire house. 

There was quite a good sized crew working on the stucco…

It kind of looks nice, until it starts to dry….then it looks blotchy.  They have to water it for 30 days so that the cement doesn’t dry too fast, and crack.

The final color, a light sandy color,  as seen here, won’t be added until close to the very end, so that it doesn’t get damaged.

Speaking of the very end, we had a short conversation with Wes about an estimated move in day.  Although he wouldn’t commit, he did say we were about a “long two months” away, which means we might be in the house by Thanksgiving!

Escaping The Heat (06-05-15)

What’s the difference between 470 and 7500? If you answered 7030, obviously you would be correct.  But in my particular example, the more important difference between those two numbers is about 25-35* F.  At 470 feet above sea level, Havasu temperatures are in the 80s and 90s.  At 7500 feet above sea level, the temperatures would be in the 60s and 70s.







I was perusing the literature and brochures that Paul and I had picked up about Havasu and surrounding areas, when something caught my eye.

Hualapai Mountain Park

This park is less than an hour and a half drive from Havasu, but it sits at an elevation of 7500 feet. Lake Havasu City is at 470 feet, so instead of the 98* in that it is in Havasu, the temperature was only 73* at the park.

We made a day trip out there and hiked one of several trails- we ended up hiking about 6 miles with 1400 feet of elevation gain.  Hiking at such a high elevation knocks the wind out of you pretty fast when you haven’t acclimated to it. We elected not to overdo.

We were pretty happy with that outing, even though the trail was nothing spectacular.










You might wonder where all my pictures are.  I mean, two measly pictures is not much.  Well, I’ll tell you. I took my good camera on that trip because I didn’t think we’d be doing a long hike. So that’s where my pictures are.  Still in the camera.

Here’s what happened.  Although the weather hasn’t been nearly as hot as it will be in a month or thereabouts, boredom and frustration are setting in.  We have not heard from the city about our house plans, so there is nothing we can do to move the project forward.  Rather than sitting and twiddling our thumbs, we loaded up the camper and left (and I left my good camera behind).

House Update

Nothing to see here.  There is nothing happening on the house at this point.  Apparently, the city is experiencing a mini housing boom so it’s taking a long time to get house plans approved.
We have been shopping around though…..

a potential back splash…

Or, maybe this…

Originally we were thinking a granite in the brown tones, in order to be neutral, but realistically, we will be decorating in a lighter, Caribbean-ish theme, so we have (pretty much) decided to go with our favorite granite- the Blue Pearl.



We already have one end table that features this granite- its one that Paul made a few years ago. We are hoping we can find a slab that leans more towards the gray tones, and less towards the blue.