Story A Day

Tim and I were very excited this morning when we saw the huge flatbed Menards truck pull up with lots and lots of supplies. They unloaded trusses, framing materials, roofing materials, windows and more onto our slab. The even more exciting part was when I arrived home from work today to find a contractor plugging away and two walls already standing! So cool.  It’s amazing how much faster things go when we aren’t doing it ourselves!

It was finally nice enough to spend some time in my garden this evening. I started plucking the dandelions and wayward grass that is trying to grow in my flower area Along the way I tried to differentiate between my native plants and the out-of-place weeds. Since I planted such a variety of things last summer it was tough to tell. There were a few questionable ones so I left them to see what they turn into later

I’m sure they’ve been in our yard all winter, though I haven’t seen them much.  Today two bunnies were lingering in my yard all afternoon, eating the weeds!  Nice.  They can eat all of the weeds they want!  As long as they don’t go for my native plants

That is not a phrase I use often when referring to home improvement projects. However, today that phrase was true! Tim and I spent a bit of time this afternoon turning the copper pipe stubs into usable water sources. We needed to install the shut-off valves to which the water lines are attached. Amazingly, we installed 5 of them – two for the laundry tub, two for the future bathroom sink, and one for the future bathroom toilet.  We got it right the first time on 4 and only had to redo 1 because of a slight leak. Amazingly simple. Good thing, because once we cut off the end of the copper stub if we didn’t get it right we would have been shutting off all of the water in our house until a plumber could come by and fix it!

We split our day today between meeting with reps from carpet companies, and helping some friends move. We decided to go with good ol’ Empire Today for our carpet – you know, that song on TV that sticks in your head and never leaves They had a competitive price and have done some good work for us before. We scheduled them to come on the 5th so we will soon have carpet in the basement – woohoo!

Then it was on to moving…I’ve been working with our friends Ken and Catherine over the last few months as they looked for a house to buy. They closed on a great place last week here in Como, so they will be our neighbors! Ken and I were joking today that I keep getting more and more friends to move to Como In the course of moving I inherited four plants from green-thumbed Ken, hopefully I can care from them as well as he did!

…there is no update.  Toooooo baaaaad.  Their original projected start date was this coming Monday, though it sounded like they might start while we were in AZ.  No such luck.  Oh well!  Soon…soon… 

This one is the teaser!  To view the full photo album of our trip to Phoenix and visit to the Grand Canyon visit the Photo Albums section of my website!

We arrived back in Phoenix today after our excursion to the Grand Canyon.  You’ll have to wait to see the photos since I took WAY to many to download from my camera onto my Grandpa’s computer Photos coming soon to a computer screen near you…  Tomorrow morning we’re homeward bound!  We may have a partially built garage when we get there!  We’ll see…

We arrived in AZ this evening and spent some quality time with my grandparents, aunt, uncle and cousins.  We played a rousing game of Phase 10, did some online chats with other relatives in CO and WA, looked at pictures, ate delicious strawberry pie, and had some good conversation.  Here is a photo of my aunt, uncle and cousins with whom we spent the evening:  (L-R) Anthony, Rusty, Marnie, Rita, Dave, John, and Samantha.  I didn’t get my grandparents in a photo yet, but I will soon! 

I’ve been keeping an eye on the high and low temperatures for our upcoming camping trip in the Grand Canyon. Average high is 65 and average low is 35 for this time of year, so we figured that would be fine for camping. Well, according to the forecast one of the nights we are there it is supposed to get down to 19 degrees! Brrrrrr!!! I think we will be enacting the classic “fill a Nalgene with hot water and put in sleeping bag” trick The good news is that it will be perfect hiking weather during the day – around 60 degrees! Woo-hoo! Good times await…