Winter 2019-2020 (06-30-20)

Well, I thought I was all done blogging, but now that we are traveling for the summer, I think I changed my mind. We will see how long it lasts.  My reasoning? Well, partly because I am more interested in writing when we are doing fun things, and partly because at least 7 times in the last week, Paul and I have asked each other things like....where we we when we ate those scallops that time?....did we hike that trail when we were here last time?......What year did we go to----?  And the answer could always be found in....you guessed it...my blog.
So, with that being said, here is a synopsis of what our winter was like...

Winter in Havasu is, thankfully for us, filled with family, friends, and fun.

  

The holidays were their usual crazy time, with Rvers in the yard and guests in the house.

We never know who is going to be around, but we are always happy when the crowd includes our daughter Jess.

Our friends are always up for a good time, so when the weather is nice, outdoor activities include games on the back deck, Teryx rides in the desert, and campfires in the back yard.

When the weather turns lousy, the fun moves indoors with dance parties, Guesstures, the annual Yankee Swap, and of course Farkle.

Of course, no holiday would be complete without the official weighing of the carrot cake!


















The festivities don’t end with the holidays- January brings the Balloon Fest, and more friends-

Whenever the weather permits, we make the trek to our favorite restaurant, El Paraiso, preferably in the Mustang, with the top down, but it isn’t always warm enough for that

February we hosted our annual WinterBlast party for the Fireworks festival.

As usual, we didn’t stay home the entire winter- we took a few trips for various reasons.

  In November we took an impromptu trip in the camper to meet up with Mike and Julie in Tucson for the Celtic Festival....

And were lucky enough to be there for another gorgeous Arizona sunset.

In December we headed to El Paso to check on Paul’s mom ( I finally remembered to get a picture!)...

















... and stopped in Phoenix on the way home for my cousin Linda’s Sweet 16 (60) birthday bash weekend.  Everyone dressed up as they would have when they were 16. Paul wore his Eagle Scout uniform (yes, it still fits) and I wore corduroys and a plaid flannel shirt. The birthday girl was dressed up as Homecoming Queen.













Well, that sums up the Party aspect of the PPP, but we also have the Project portion as well.


Large and small, we had lots of projects.  The biggest was probably the solar panels we had put on the roof. Paul has been waiting for the price of solar to be worth doing, and now we finally have the entire RV garage roof covered with panels.  He has fun checking our output every day.










Work wise, leveling the side of the yard was probably the hardest…We had literally tons of dirt brought in so that we could level the side near the fence.

 This makes it much nicer for parking our stuff over there.

Some of the projects mostly involved us just writing checks….those would include the new rain gutters along the back ( and some in the front) and the new shade, so that we can “close off” more of the back deck.

And, some of the projects could have been accomplished by just writing a check, but Paul chose to keep himself busy by doing things like making his own corn hole game….

Happy Holidays (01-04-18)

Yep, that’s just what we had, happy holidays!

Over the last 6 weeks, we have had lots of people come and go, here at the PPP.  Some came for a few days, some stayed the whole 6 weeks, and some came, left, and came back!  Some people brought their rigs and some chose the B&B option and stayed in the house.

Thanksgiving was the first holiday on the horizon…

…and apparently I didn’t get my camera out during the meal because I can’t find any pictures of it!

It was awesome that the weather was warm enough for us to laze by the pool !

We sure kept ourselves very busy. In addition to Teryx rides, swimming, eating, hot tubbing and shopping, we managed to fit in a few games of Farkle.

After Thanksgiving, Paul and I made a trip to Phoenix, in part to buy some necessities at Costco. I love the way the lake looks at sunrise, even though I am not happy being on the road when the sun rises!

Before we knew it, the Christmas crowd arrived- including our daughter Jessica.

Actually, we were lucky enough to have Jess with us for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. I love it when Jess is here at the same time as my friend Carol, since I usually end up with some great pictures of her! Thanks, Carol Dwyer!

When people are staying for more than a day or so we don’t eat all of our meals together, but we are usually happier if we can laugh our way through a group dinner….whether it’s inside…

or out…

What’s that old saying- “many hands make light work”?

With our friends, everyone pitches in and no one is afraid to take over the kitchen, making it very easy to feed so many people!

After a group breakfast Christmas morning we all took some time to relax and to video chat with far away family members..

The day after Christmas is our annual “girls’ day out” which we spend shopping and eating at one of our favorite restaurants.

Lest you think the guys were bored, sitting around waiting for us to return, don’t worry. They took the Teryx out into the desert and spent the afternoon target shooting.

Not coincidently, Girl’s Day Out takes place on Julie’s birthday, and that night we were happy to toast the birthday girl with our margaritas (even though I didn’t quite get her in this picture, haha).

We do like to have a good time, and New Year’s Eve was no exception! Does it say something about our age that we are all happy the “midnight” takes place at 10 pm here in Mountain Standard Time?

Our last night together as a group coincided with the Super Moon, which you can see rising up over our house.

The following day there was a well orchestrated Porter Shuffle, as most of the rigs left, and the remaining ones repositioned themselves.

Being busy with the holidays, we weren’t working on too many projects, but we did manage to get one done.



Soon after Thanksgiving, the weather turned much colder and it wasn’t worth trying to keep the pool warm. Our “pool guy” has been telling us that we really need to drain it and put in fresh water.  The water is so hard here that over time, the minerals build up, and ours was off the charts.

So, sadly, we turned off the heater and freshened the water. We hope to start heating it again when we get back in February.

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!