Happy Mother's Day 2014

We had planned to have my mom come up to Payson the last week of April to celebrate her birthday. Originally, all of us were going to go up on the weekend and then Laurie and Mom would stay and come back later in the week.  Well, due to a scheduled work event that weekend, I was unable to go. However, Laurie and Mom had a good time visiting, enjoying the cooler weather, working on some sewing ideas, and going to the thrift stores.  For Mom's birthday, they went out to breakfast, did some more shopping and had Mexican food for dinner.  Mom really enjoyed her birthday and the time Laurie spent with her.

One of their thrift store runs netted us some new window coverings to replace the sheet we recently placed in the front family room window.  Now we look very upscale with actual curtains.

Much nicer than the paper shades and easier to work with

On our last trip, we replaced some old totes on our back deck with some new deck boxes.  We then found, on sale, an outdoor trash container that looks similar to the main deck box and replaced our 32 gallon black yard trash bin.  We are moving on up!

Definitely too upscale for this old wood deck

On our first trip to Walmart this weekend, we found some plants for sale for Mother's Day.  One was a mini-rose bush, with red flowers.  There was a rose bush in the front yard when we bought the house, but it died a few years ago and we have wanted a new one ever since.  I got the rose bush for Laurie for Mother's Day and we planted it over the weekend.  Let us hope this one survives the summer.

Very nice plant, hope it lasts awhile

The rest of the weekend was quiet, but to celebrate Mother's Day (apart from the rose bush), Laurie wanted to take the quads out for a spin.  So we found some back streets we could take to get to one of our favorite restaurants, 260 Cafe, and then a way to get from there to the national forest trails behind our house.  We made a few wrong turns, but got to the restaurant for a wonderful breakfast (as always!) and then back on the road to find the trail.  We had left our hiking GPS back in the Valley, but both our phones had map apps which we used to find the trails we wanted and make sure we stayed on track.  There were a couple of steep, narrow, rocky places on the trail, but nothing we couldn't get past and we made the loop back to our neighborhood.  It was a very fun ride and we hope to do more in the future and eventually find a trail down to the Verde River.

After our ride, all decked out in our off-road gear

Stats: 0 Home Depot trips; 4 Walmart trips
Remodeling expense 4/15/14-5/12/14: $0
Remodeling expense to date: $40,025

Taking the Quads for a Ride

Now that we are getting back into a groove with our trips to Payson, we have started making plans for changes we want to make this year.  The top priority items are interior painting, door trim/baseboards, and crawlspace insulation.  Laurie will be doing much of the painting and trim with some of her planned extended stays at the house and we hope to be able to work on the insulation using some of Mike's vacation time.  But for now, we are just enjoying the weekends and getting the house back to a settled state.

Speaking of that, we decided to change our temporary front window paper shades with another temporary solution.  When Matt and Danielle moved in, they put up tension rods in the spare bedroom and den windows with sheets as a shade.  We have been waiting until the painting is done to put up real shades, but the paper ones on the front window are losing their adhesiveness.  So we bought another tension rod and put up a sheet.  Now the room has a little color.  We also livened up the back deck by purchasing a couple of outside deck boxes to replace the totes we have been using out there for storage.

The red sheet adds a splash of color to our main room

This deck box is a much needed improvement over our age-old tote

We decided to get one more deck box to hold the chair cushions and some covers.  The small tote is for Zena's stuff.

Our quads had been at Four Seasons Motorsports since we dropped them off on our last trip.  Mike received a call on Friday about replacing the battery on one of the units, but no indication as to when they would be done.   Since Four Seasons is closed Sunday and Monday, we wanted to see if we could get them back instead of waiting another two weeks.  So before it got too late on Saturday, Mike called to check on the status.  He was told they were done and went down to pick them up.  Once they were back at the house, we took them on a short trip up the trails behind our neighborhood just to see how they ran.  They both worked much better than before.

This weekend was another windy one, so Mike could not take care of the dead grass with his propane torch.  Hopefully we will have calmer weather one of these weekends, but he was able to cut the grass in the front and do some cleanup in the yard.  The grass is mostly weeds, but definitely looks better when cut.  He also set up the water timers for the front and back since the temperatures are staying above freezing and there has not been much rain.

Mike went to the Payson MVD Monday to finish the registration on the quad we got from Laurie's dad since it now has the street legal components.  Now both vehicles can be taken on and off road.  Later that morning, we took the quads down to Country Club drive near the golf course and went west, just to see what was out there.  We did not want to do any off road stuff yet as we still do not have helmets, but the countryside was beautiful and the quads rode nicely on the mostly paved roads.  We looked at maps later to see what roads we could take back in that area.  We found some that loop back to the trails behind our neighborhood and some that will take us to the East Verde river.  Can't wait to get helmets and make one of those trips.

We left a little earlier on Monday so we could get back to the valley in time to go to the movies with a friend of ours whose husband is out of town.  We saw "God is not Dead" which was a wonderful movie.

Stats: 1 Home Depot trip; 2 Walmart trips
Remodeling expense 4/02/14-4/14/14: $6
Remodeling expense to date: $40,025

More Power Captain

Mike went back to Hawaii the last week in March for work.  He came back late on Friday night and we left first thing Saturday for Payson.  Since he had to work some overtime while traveling, he took both Monday and Tuesday off to extend our stay.

We didn't accomplish much in Payson this weekend, however we did get a new power source.  We bought a good sized generator to use for the workshop (right now it is not hooked up for electricity) and to have as a backup if we lose town power.  We unboxed it, installed the wheel kit and then gave it gas and oil.  Right out of the box, it ran like a champ.  We took it back to the workshop and hooked up lights and a power tool.  It did not even put a dent in its performance.  Mike thinks it may be a little loud, but much preferable to running a slew of extension cords across the yard.

Big enough to run 7000 Watts (8750 Watt peak) of power

Mike wanted to burn some of the dead grass with his new toy (aka propane torch), but it was too windy.  We will have to wait for a calmer weekend.

We went to the Payson MVD to title the quad we got from Laurie's dad and it is now licensed for off-roading.  We still need to add the street legal parts before we can get it registered for regular road use.  After getting the off-road tags, we took a test ride down the forest roads which run behind our neighborhood.  We did not go too far as we don't have helmets yet.

We were given a recommendation to use Four Seasons Motorsports in Rye to have the quads serviced.  We knew it had been awhile since Laurie's dad's quad was serviced and we were not 100% sure when the last time the quad we bought was serviced.  Four Seasons is not open on Sunday or Monday, but since we were going back Tuesday, we were able to schedule a time to drop off both ATVs on the way home.  We were even able to leave our trailer there so we didn't have to tow it back to Gilbert.  Hopefully they will be done by the next time we come up.

Stats: 1 Home Depot trip; 1 Walmart trip
Remodeling expense 3/17/14-4/01/14: $595
Remodeling expense to date: $40,019

A Weekend with Our Nephew

We have a nephew in Texas who became a truck driver in 2013.  He has had many different routes since he got his first job, but a recent change in trucking lines has started to bring him through Arizona.  This week he decided to take some extra time off during his load change in Phoenix and spend a few days with us.  He was hoping to go fishing while he was here with some of Laurie's brothers (Mike is not a fisherman), but found out from them that the fish were not biting well and both of the uncles had to work the weekend.  So we asked him to join us in Payson for the weekend and he agreed.

Mike had pulled almost a 24 hour shift at work due to some resource scheduling issues and made up some of the time by taking Friday off, so we went up earlier than usual.  This worked out well because we had to leave Payson early in order to get our nephew back to his truck by Sunday night.  On the way up, we stopped at Laurie's dad's place to pick up the quad that he is going to let us use up in Payson.  They rarely use it around his property and said we could keep it as long as he could get access to it if they needed it for hunting.  It is a little bigger than the one we bought for Laurie, but still fit in the back of the truck nicely.

When we took up the quad for Laurie on our last trip, we decided we would need a place to store the quads instead of leaving them in the open.  We found a 10x10 "Shed-in-a-box" on Amazon which would house both quads.  This had arrived in the mail just before our trip and we were able to fit it in the truck with the quad.  Mike was happy our nephew was joining us as it would be another set of hands to help put up this structure.

We did not have any tasks this weekend, except to erect the shed and spend time with our nephew.  We had a great dinner at one of our favorite Mexican restaurants on Friday night and then hit the ground running Saturday on the shed.  The best place to put the new shed was next to our small wood shed in the Northeast corner of the backyard.  The only problem was this is where Mike had put many tree cuttings over the past year or so.  We spent a few hours cutting the branches into smaller sizes that could be used in our fire pit (the plan all along) and then clearing the area of dead grass.  Then we had to make the area a little more level for the shed as it had quite a slope to start with.  Once the area was well prepared, we began construction.

Chopping up the old tree branches

Area cleared and mostly levelled

The shed was not hard to put together, but it definitely required some extra hands and we even had to solicit Laurie's help from time to time (in between her picture taking duties).  Laying out the frame seemed to be difficult at first, but once we started on the shed cover, we found that the frame was the easiest part.  It did not help that we had some very strong gusts of wind while we worked, causing the cover and shed to move about until we finally got it secured.  All in all it was not a bad project and came out quite nice.  Both quads fit inside with room to spare.  Many thanks to our nephew for helping out.

Our nephew waiting for instructions from Mike

Laying out the frame pieces

Frame set in place

The front and back panels went on before the combination side/top

Our nephew making sure the ladder was secure

Mike was challenged to roll open the door by himself (not an easy task).

Four thumbs up for a job well done

Amazingly, both quads fit

When we went to transfer the quad license from Laurie's dad, we found that the title was missing and we would have to do it another day.  In addition, we need to make his quad street legal as it is missing a horn, a rear-view mirror and a license plate holder/light.  We plan to take the quads in for service soon and will have some of that added at that time.

Sunday was a great day of rest and a safe trip back to our nephew's truck depot in Phoenix and then home.

Stats: 1 Home Depot trip; 2 Walmart trips
Remodeling expense 2/18/14-3/16/14: $15
Remodeling expense to date: $39,424