April Happenings

The month of April is two-thirds gone. What has been happening here? The first Sunday of the month was Easter. The altar area of Epiphany Episcopal Church in Tempe was beautifully decorated and the worship service was even better. John assisted at one of the services.

This is the month when the snowbirds begin their flight north. Just look at these nearly deserted areas of our resort.

Since so many people are learning, one of our neighbors had an end of the season party.

We had our RV washed an waxed early in the month.

Ever since we moved out of our house in 2009 to live in our RV full time, we have had stuff in storage. We went from five crates of stored items, plus on U-Haul storage unit, to a smaller U-Haul unit after getting rid of most of the stuff. Last spring we drove to Denver and brought the remaining storage items here to Arizona. We pared that down to one 5 ft by 10 ft unit last fall. Now we are going through lots and lots of paper filed in boxes. This is what is looked like in our living room one day this week.

Here is a picture as we loaded the truck in March last year. Notice the 3 black file cabinets. That is where all the paper was located that we are trying to get rid of.

We are pushing hard so we can empty the storage unit and have everything that is left stored here in our winter home. We hope that we will finish that work and the construction on our addition will be far enough along that we can leave here about May 1.

It's Taking Shape

They have been working almost every week day on our construction project and we now have a really good idea of what it looks like.

The framer crew chief kidded around as I took his picture. Do you suppose he really could hold up the frame?

After they had the walls built, the roof trusses were delivered and installed, then fiber board put down for the roof.

The roofer was here the last two days, putting down several layers of roofing. The second photo shows you what the finished roof looks like.

At this point, the ducts for the heat and air conditioning are in, the lights and electrical outlets are installed. There will be an inspection by the county, then drywall, insulation and stucco will be completed. We are please with how fast they are working now.

We had impatiently waited for months for this construction to begin. The resort owners insisted construction in this part of Superstition Views not begin until after Easter. There are still four model homes on this street. After seeing how crowded the street is while there are working, we can see why we had to wait.

Construction Begins!

We bought our Arizona winter home in October and at that time signed a contract for the concrete rv pad and driveway and for a workshop to be built next to the house. The concrete was poured in January and we have been anxiously waiting for construction to begin on the workshop. Finally, Monday they started work!

First, the framers started bringing out their tools.

Since the lumber hadn't been delivered yet, they borrowed some from a nearby work site.

Finally, the full lumber load arrived.

By the end of the first day, they had all the studs in place, as well as the supporting beams in.

We are so excited to see this project take place. We plan to stay here until most of the work is done. That way we can answer any questions they have, as well as understand how the room is put together. Neither of us knows much about construction, so we are really enjoying seeing the work progress and learning something in the process.

The crew returned today and this is what our workshop and car port look like at the end of the work day.

Family Comes to Visit

Sunday, our son Eric, wife Liz and children Kylie and John came for a two-day visit. In the past, they have had to sleep on the floor of our RV, in their tent outside, or in a nearby hotel or resort. This time, they slept in our house and we moved to our RV for a few days. It all worked! This is one of the reasons we bought this house.

We had a busy couple of days. The pool was a favorite place to visit.

We played a little water volleyball. It isn't any easier than the game played on solid ground. I'm still not any good at it.

Kylie and John are both competitive swimmers and they showed us what they are able to do. Really impressive. Such great form and strong strokes.

The weather has been great and we spent a lot of time sitting outside in our "yard," eating and drinking and talking.

Eric did some wash in the resort laundry room.

And grandson John was the first person to try out our hide-a-bed. It gets good reviews from the grandchildren.

There was a lot more crammed into the two days they were here. More of the activity tomorrow.

See Us Now

Finally, we have it all together--our two homes, that is.

This is why we bought this house. We have a full-hookup RV pad right next to the house. We now have a guest house. And we can easily move things back and forth between the two. Two weeks ago, the last of the concrete in our yard was poured. We had to wait a week to park our truck here. And today, two weeks out, we were told we could park our RV here. At 8:15 this morning, we had our truck hooked up to the RV, then drove around the block and parked it here. We are very happy.

We have been doing a few things other than equipping the house and looking at the concrete. We have visited with blogger friends Jim and Gayle and Art and Connie. We attended a pancake breakfast as guests of Bob and Marcia, who had come to see our new house several days earlier. We do weight training and walking. In addition to church services on Sunday, we attended the spaghetti dinner at Epiphany, as well. And we have both endured through colds.

Two Saturdays in a row, I have been to the wood shop here in Canyon Vistas, learning how to turn a piece of wood on the lathe. I really enjoy working with wood and one of the residents is in the wood shop to help people learn this skill on Saturday mornings. Here is what I have made so far, a small vase. It is made of mesquite wood.

Using the lathe is something like using a potter's wheel to shape clay. As the wood spins, I use a metal tool to start removing wood. As I do, the square piece of wood turns into a round object. How wonderful! I hope to make some bowls and some pens.
John has been carving and writing a book about his ancestors.

We certainly enjoy our life here in the Arizona winter.

This is Better

We aren't really aware of the little conveniences of life until they aren't there. That has been the case in our new house. Neither the living room nor the bedroom had overhead lights or outlets that are switch-controlled. Since both rooms had a set of two switches that are tied into an overhead covered outlet, it was possible to install a ceiling fan/light combination. Some of the other model homes already had them, but ours didn't.

We planned to buy two ceiling fan/lights and have someone install them for us. Two friends assured John he could do it himself. He decided to try. Thankfully, an electrician was wiring our RV hookup when we reached the place where the assembled fan needed to be connected to the wires in the ceiling. The instruction book described what to do, but added the caution that if the wires from the ceiling were different colors that what is described in the instructions, it was important to have a professional electrician do the wiring. John asked him to take a look, he quickly told John what to do, and we were able to complete the job.

Today, he attached the light fixture and put in the final screws.

And look, we have a light and a fan on our ceiling. We can now walk in the dark room, reach to our left and turn on the ceiling light. It does a much better job of providing light to the entire room than the two bedside table lamps had been doing. And it is convenient to get to the switch.

Often, it is the little things that make the biggest difference in our daily lives.  Next week, we will install the second fan/light.

They Finished!

This is the finished concrete pad in front of our winter home.  We are so happy to have this in place.  In a week, we can drive our car on the driveway.  In two weeks, we can move our RV onto the site.  That was a major reason we moved here.

It rained overnight. At 5 am, John heard someone outside. It turns out, Rich, the owner of the construction company that is putting in our cement, was checking to see if they could still pour today. He shoveled out the water and cancelled the cement delivery. Soon, he decided to go ahead. The cement company was able to put us back on the schedule and the first truck arrived at 9:30. By then, the workers had covered the adjoining dried concrete with paper, protected our house and put down the wire to strengthen the RV pad area. They had to put down plywood so the truck could back on our site.

They used small amounts of the cement to hold the wire in place and support the thin pieces of wood that serve as spacers between some of the sections of the driveway.

We brought a dozen donuts to treat the workers. They have all been so friendly and helpful and fun to have around.

Soon, they were filling the RV pad area with wet cement, while one man began smoothing out what had been poured.





The first truck arrived with only 6 yards of cement on board. When that truck was empty, another arrive to pour the rest of the area.

The pad and driveway have to slope down to the street level. It was interesting to see how they marked where the slope began and used the long board to keep things level from side to side.



All the cement was laid by 10:15. That part of the job goes quickly. But the last worker didn't finish picking up and stowing away all their equipment, after smoothing and smoothing the concrete, until sometime after 1:30. At times, there were two people smoothing out the concrete and pushing away the excess water. Either today's load of cement was wetter or last night's rain made it dry more slowly.

After spreading the salt on the surface, he used a roller, with a long handle, to make sure it settled into the wet cement.

By the way, why does a cement truck deliver cement for a concrete driveway? Obviously, I am not clear on the two terms and have used them interchangeably in these posts.