Our visit to our stick and brick house, Mar 26-Apr 15, 2010

Our plans were to be at our stick and brick house to help out our two daughters (Jenny and Megan) – watch two of our grandsons.   But before Jenny’s family left for a cruise, we were able to watch them play a couple of softball games.  Lindsey pitches, catches and covers 3rd base, also she umpires the younger age groups’ games.  Abby, her first year at playing softball, is doing a great job of pitching and also plays 1st base.  Also had fun watching our daughter, Jenny, catch for Abby’s warm up pitches – she did a great job as she did not play softball at a kid.

Here is Jen catching for Abby’s pitches

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Below Abby is pitching while Lindsey is umpiring, notice in Lindsey’s left hand her score keeping devise, with it she  keeps track of strikes, balls, innings, etc.

Lindsey can really throw the softball fast, here she is practicing with her Dad.  She had developed her own style of throwing and can throw the softball with speed, accuracy, and confidence! 

 

 

 

As you can see, weeds grow tall in the central valley of California.  The area where Zach is standing used to be our garden area many years ago (the weeds are glowing in our gravel path).  Zach is helping pull some of them out, we eventually got the area cleaned out.  Now, see that falling down fence, it was time to replace it.

   The old fence was 5’ and the new one is 6’ – no one can peek over this one.

See, all the weeds are gone!

 

 

 

When finished this new section of fence looked great.

Rich came over a couple of evenings to help trim our rogue palm tree.  He is wearing his grandfather’s pole climbing belt. He did trim about 30 fronds off…what a nasty job!

Mexican Train was enjoyed by everyone.  Good times!!

Bob worked on several projects on the coach when we were at the house.

1.  New shelf to hold our stereo components, the old one was sagging.  Bob replaced the bottom board and added a facing board to the shelf.  Looks 100% better.

2.  Replaced our front door opening/closing arm.   Now the door works great and does not stick open.

3.  Replaced our water hose in the wet bay.  The old hose had become kinked in places.  This is what it looks like behind that pretty white cover.  Plus you have to unhook at least 4 water connections and 5 switches.  Well now it is back together almost OK, we do have a leak with one of the connections.  It did not leak with just the water pump pressure, but with the city water hooked up to the hose, it does drip, so our wet bay is wet!  A future day fix.

  4.  Replace the slide topper that blew off (partially in Mexico and finally in southern CA).

Here Bob is removing the old topper from the roller. It measures about 145” x 45”.  We had hoped just to have this piece of fabric restitched, but…the wind had unraveled several inches of the fabric on one end.  Our options were to buy a whole new one or have one made, so knowing the price for a new one would be $350+, we opted to have one sewn for us.  Found a car top upholsterer and he ordered the fabric (Sunbrella) and sewed one up for us using the old fabric as a pattern, even sewed the two existing beads (from the old topper) in the long sides to slip into the channels on the coach and the slide edge. Total cost $235.

  Even Meg helped out with this project, we had to wind (like a window shade) up the roller as per Carefree of Colorado instructions (they emailed them to us). 

 

She held the roller as Bob did his 21 winds.  Then a cotter pin was inserted and held the spring tight.  Not an easy job, but she is very strong!  Yea Meg!!!

Then it was time to get back up on top of the coach and slip the sewed in beads on the fabric’s edges in the proper channels.  Bob did a fantastic job and all went just  as well as expected.

Above he is starting to thread the bead in the channel on the coach.

In the photo above, it is all threaded onto the coach.

Above Bob has already threaded the bead into the channel in the roller, and now he is rolling the topper fabric up on the roller.

In the photo below, he is holding the cotter pin that held the springs 21 winds secure.  If he is holding it, that is good, as he pulled it out and the fabric all wound up securely as it should!!  See that smile!!! 

We put the slide in and out a few times to test the topper and roller mechanism,  it works great.

Below Bob is admiring his handiwork.

While we were at the house, we found time to have dinner with our dear friends, Carl and Jan.  This restaurant, Roxy, was open in the front, just like in Europe.  Fantastic meal too!

We then went to their home to see their new puppy, Stewie.

He is about two years old and is such a loveable beast!!  Here Carl is getting a kiss!

 

 

 

 

Both grandsons really loved coloring Easter eggs, here Justin is coloring the eggs before they are dyed.

Zach also had a blast decorating and dying the eggs.

Abby and Zach spend one night at Grandma’s.  They played a game of brushing each other’s teeth.  Not as easy as it looks.

Here Bob is showing Lindsey, Abby, and Zach our  names in a old family Bible we were giving to Lindsey.

April is full of birthdays, Lindsey’s (12) is the 13th and Rich and Meg’s (?) are the 15th.

 

Here is Lindsey wearing a locket I had when I was about her age.  It had my photo on the inside, also on the outside it was engraved with a “L”, the L now stands for Lindsey.  I am so blessed to have her as my granddaughter.  We love you Lindsey, you rock!!

 

Here are Rich and Meg on their birthday, it became a tradition to take them out on their birthday, April 15th, to breakfast.   We met at 6:15 on Thursday morning, so we could eat and they would have time to get to work. 

I worked for many years at a CPA office, and we  had an office celebration in the evening of the 15th to mark another tax year survived, so by taking them out in the morning, I could go out with by co workers and feel no guilt.

The wisteria and roses at the house were giving us quite a show!

We were planning on leaving today, Apr 15, but first had to fix our bathtub’s constant drip.  Ended up replacing the cartridge, when Bob was replacing the clip to hold it in place, it slipped and flipped into the abyss behind the tub, bummer, (that is not what he said).  So another trip back to the hardware to purchase a clip, this time he made sure it went where it was suppose to!

Before noon, we were on the road again!