The Deck (01-15-14)

Well, first of all, this is new and somewhat exciting.  This is my first post from our new computer.  Unfortunately we still have not been able to get any information onto it from the old one, so I have none of my files, pictures or music.....yet.  We'll keep trying, but since we have now moved on and are in the desert of Arizona, internet access is extremely slow, making it more challenging.  Not to mention we are sitting in a circle of about 40 friends, which means our time  might be pretty occupied, not leaving much time to work on the PC. 

The only pictures I have of the deck work right now are the ones that were still on my camera, and the ones I stole from Amy, so I'll have to make do.  Anyway,  here's the story:

Paul's nephew Shad, and his wife Amy live near San Diego, and just bought a new house.  They had asked if Paul could add a railing to the existing deck to make it safer.  He, of course, said "sure". Once we saw the deck, he offered to  make more drastic changes. The original deck (below) stood 3 feet high, and was flush with the hot tub.  Not a great set up. 

 

Add to that the fact that the stairs from the master bedroom intruded into the yard and the whole yard looked a little choppy.

 

 

With help from his brother Tom, Shad and Amy, and everyone else who happened to be around, we lowered the deck 28 inches and moved/rebuilt the staircase so it is less intrusive.

 

 

Paul loves a project like that to work on.  It's one of the things he misses about owning a house.

Happy Holidays! (12-27-13)

And a wonderful time was had by all. 


Paul’s mom flew in from El Paso a few days before Christmas and we all spent the day at Paul’s nephew’s house. 

Part of the attraction is Shad and Amy’s son, William, who we had never met. He is a 21 month old barrel of fun!

We have also been spending considerable time there because Paul offered to help Shad and Amy with their deck.  He was quite happy to have a project to sink his teeth into.  The original intent was to just add a railing, but after checking it out, they decided to do a rebuild of the deck itself.  I'll put some before and after pictures in a different post.







Christmas Eve was spent at Paul’s brother’s house, eating the day away, as usual! It’s so nice that in Southern California, we can relax outside on Christmas Eve!

William is a constant entertainment, especially when he does things like use the doggy door to go in and out of the house!

Christmas morning was just the three of us-Jess, Paul and I- or should I say the four of us.  Dozer thought we got this  just for him.

Our newest tree ornament, a gift from my sister, is a small travel trailer- perfect for our tree!

Our main gift to Jess was new clothes and the three of us had gone shopping together in L.A. for that, but she still had no shortage of gifts to open. 

In the afternoon, it was back to Shad and Amy’s house where we enjoyed watching William play with all his new toys.  Lucky for his mom and dad, this drum set is fun, but not too noisy!

Although I missed my family, it was nice to be able to spend the holidays with Paul’s family.

Castle Rock CO

Well, after coming over the Rocky Mountains on Rte 70,  Paul has declared that we will not be going over that mountain again.  The elevation got to be over 11,000 ft.  Up and Down for hours.  I didn't realize he was stressing until he said so, and when I was surprised, he said that the throttle was pinned, so we were going as fast as we could, up the hill.  We weren't quite keeping up with the cars, but we did ok.  He said if the truck was ever going to have a problem, thats when it would happen, but miles and miles of up and down, and the engine temperature never changed, so that was good. 

Elevation reduces the horsepower that an engine is capable of, so it makes the steep hills tougher. I was on the lookout for Elk, since they frequent this area and although I haven't seen any yet, I did learn that they put "ramps" on the highway so that if Elk get on the road, they can get back off again.  I also saw for the first time "Chain stations".  In the winter months it is mandatory for trucks to "chain up" before going over the mountain, so there are pulloffs for them to do that.

Once we made it over, we ended a very long day of travel.  Almost 8 hours in the truck, and thats a long day for us.  We made it early enough to meet up with Shad and Amy, our nephew and his wife, for dinner.  We elected to head to Red Robin for dinner since Amy works for the company and none of us was up for cooking!  We had a great dinner with them and then met up again today for more fun.

We all hiked up Devil's Head trail, which leads to the last active fire lookout station on the Colorado mountain range. The view from the top was 100 miles in all directions, which was pretty awesome for me. It was my first good look at the Rocky Mountains.  Being a John Denver fan from my teenage years, I have always wanted to come here and see what he loved about them so much.
           After heading home to regroup, we all went out to dinner again at Red Robin- boy, I could get used to that! We had a great time with Shad and Amy, its really the first chance we have had to spend time with just the two of them and they are really great people. 
Now its on to our next stop, which is a state park just north of Denver, closer to Rocky Mountain National Park.  We may or may not have cell service and internet. I made a bucket list of things we might like to do while we are here.  We'll see what we end up doing.