Busy Days…

Lots of things happening lately!  Still making progress on the house remodel – the new rooms are painted!  “Tawny” in the playroom and hall, a nice lavender “Whimsy” in the girls’ bedroom, and Swiss Coffee (like off white) in the pantry.  Just need the wood laminate floor installed and the electrical outlets/switches/lighting fixtures.  Once all that is done, we can start to move in!

Madison’s birthday is this Thursday, the 29th, but Braden & I are going to be gone, so we celebrated it last weekend.  Saturday she had some friends over for cake, then we took them all swimming at the Cove in Sierra Vista.  The next night she got to go with her sisters (and Mom) to see Justin Bieber in concert in Phoenix.  Taryn and Cheyenne had fun too, even though they were trying not to look it. :)

A few nights earlier, Braden, Brittany&Joe, Taryn, Cheyenne, and I went to Elton John’s concert in Tucson!  That was an awesome experience, I’ve been an EJ fan for most of my life.  He is a first-class performer and it was a fantastic show.  He had been sick, in fact he was scheduled to play on Wednesday but had to change it to Thursday.  He also had to leave the stage for a few minutes because he wasn’t feeling well, but he came back and finished like nothing was wrong.  It was amazing.  He apologized for the re-scheduling, saying “Sorry about yesterday.. I was flat on my back.”  But he said that he was not going to cancel the show in Arizona.  He said “I know there are acts who are refusing to perform in Arizona… well I think they’re f***wits.” (I hadn’t heard that word before!)… then he went on to say “I go to California, and as a gay man I have no legal rights there whatsoever, but I still play there, what’s THEIR problem?”  I was impressed by that.

The previous weekend we had our Mortensen Family reunion in Heber, AZ.  It was beautiful up there, even if it was a little warmer than we would have liked.  Our family borrowed a camp trailer from our friends, the Andersons, which was much nicer than sleeping in a tent.  I have uploaded my pictures to our PicasaWeb.  Click on the photo to go to the album. 

Back to Construction, Phase I

We now have drywall on the new inside walls, and they have all been taped and textured.  I had to clean out the new pantry today (we had left stuff in there and they built around it) so they can paint and put the flooring in.  This is after I’d taken most of the food storage off the shelves.
 
It’s empty now—we’re building shelves so those chrome units will need to go elsewhere… they’re currently on the back porch.

Also today, the workers put stucco on the exterior walls.

The front of the new roof is now tiled.  That was tricky… they had to do it over a couple of times because the new tile we bought is slightly wider than the existing, so it didn’t match up with what we had.  Fortunately our builder is a genius and managed to get it to work, and it looks awesome.

They took the doors off our office to use them for the new bedroom and its closet.  At the moment this messy room is also storing pantry stuff.  Eventually that wall and the adjoining wall to the right will be knocked out, opening it up as our new dining room (Phase 2)!

This is our current dining “room”… it’s just a corner of the kitchen.  We will be putting cabinets and a computer center there (for the kids’ computer and household office stuff).
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Sibyl Road, St. David AZ, when it rains.

Okay i just have to share this… Sibyl Road in St. David has to be one of my favorite places in the world.  And this afternoon the sky clouded up and we got a little bit of rain!  It was so beautiful, I had to go take a walk up Sibyl Road… and just happened to have my phone with me, so snapped a few pictures.  The camera phone doesn’t do it justice, but those of you who love St. David as much as I do will appreciate them anyway!

Walking south… I love the mulberry and other tall trees, and the ferns that grow so thick on the east side of the road….

Still going south, nearing the Highway, the Mortensens’ pecan grove and their cute goats….

I loved hearing the goats, the crickets, the cicadas, the birds, an occasional horse whinnying, the rustling of the trees…. feeling a light sprinkling of rain and the cool breeze on my face and arms…

Heading back North… here’s Goodmans’ horses – I love the mountains and trees in the background.  There was also a really great sunset, but it doesn’t show up here.

Lovin’ those ferns!!  (Or whatever it is)

Mayberrys’ Garden

And their pond

Such a friendly town… everyone driving past me waved… but this guy honked at me….

I love this town.

San Diego Trip 2010--Recap

Okay, I gave up on trying to go through all the pics and sort them into neat little piles according to the day and park we visited, and put the best ones on here and tell about them, when it really doesn't matter because how many people even read this?? It's just for me and a few people who like to peek in now and them. So here is the link to all the pictures on my PicasaWeb and you can peruse them at your leisure. Or not. :)



Stay tuned for more updates on the house remodel.

Day 5: Back to Sea World, then Mission Beach

We decided since we had 5-day passes, we would go back to Sea World and ride the water rides again.  The Journey to Atlantis ride is amazing…. this is the back (view from the parking lot)

And this is my family coming down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then we had some fun with the silly mirrors…

And some kiddie rides….

 

And some cute sea lions…

 

And back to watch Shamu again.  Love it.

 

After that, we went to Mission Beach.  Lots of fun there – it was such a beautiful day.

Day 4: SD Zoo’s Wild Animal Park

The Wild Animal Park is located in Escondido, about 30 miles north of San Diego Zoo.

They have a really cute carousel.


And a water-play area that was a very welcome sight – it was warm today (okay, about 82 degrees so not as hot as home, but we were walking a lot in the sun…)! 
 

This lovely lady was lying right next to the viewing window… so beautiful!! 


There were some African acrobats there from Tanzania….  About an hour before their show, they came to a picnic area and played jump-rope with us.
 

Here are some shots of the acrobats’ performance.  They were fun to watch.
  

It’s a beautiful place… giraffes and antelope and rhinos and zebras and tigers and lions, in large habitats that are as close to natural as they can get in captivity.

There are also a few aviaries with beautiful birds flying around -- Madison and Logan got to feed some lorikeets. 

It was a fun day – but I think we’ve all had enough zoo-theme parks for a while!  We’re exhausted.  Tomorrow we’re SLEEPING IN!!