Sunday update

It's Sunday morning after another weekend at home. Sometimes its nice to not travel, but to just stay home and not have to do anything - unless we want to.

Dennis and I carpooled every day this week except for Wednesday morning. That made for long days since he is working overtime. We were there before 7 and stayed until 4:30 or 4:45. Friday we left at 3:30 which was very nice!

Wednesday I took the motor home to Payless to have the jacks fixed. They broke down after we got home from Flagstaff a few weeks ago. We are really hoping to get it back by Wednesday so that we can go out of town Thursday.

Friday we went to PF Chang's with Ron & Marilyn. We then stopped by Cold Stone for some ice cream to go, then came back to our house for some ice cream and wine. It was a fairly early night, we were in bed by 10:30. Saturday, the dogs woke us up at 5:30. We got dressed and went down to Ron & Marilyn's because they were having a garage sale. We bought some stuff and helped drive in some traffic for them by putting our neon green signs out at strategic places. We had a new alarm installed Saturday morning - ADT didn't want to make it worthwhile for us to become their customers again, so we signed up with American Alarm/Monitronics. We got a new keypad with cell phone communication to the monitoring station and got all new batteries in our sensors. The monitoring fee is about the same as with ADT. It's ADT's loss.

After a couple of naps and lots of relaxation, Lyn and Dan came down and we drank some wine, had some appetizers, and then had dinner. We watched The House Bunny - which was very funny - and then they left. It was a very nice evening.

Today the dogs let us sleep in until 5:45. They've both been very emotionally and affectionately needy this morning. I think it's because they are cold. They're 10 pounds, and with the a/c and ceiling fan going, it gets cold for them at 12" off the floor. We kicked them out of the bed this week - by setting up a bed for them on the recliner that we took to the bedroom from the family room. Drama does a great job staying in the chair but Brother Boy gets out of the chair several times a night and jumps on our bed. And several times a night, we get up and put him back in the chair. It is nice to sleep without worrying about rolling over onto one of them. But they don't like it very much!

We've also taken to giving them free reign of the bedroom and bathroom when we go to work. We did it 3 days this week and they did great. They are less energetic when we get home because they romped around all day, and they entertain each other. Thursday they got some bar soap out of the bathtub and chewed on it. Friday, they found a wooden ball that was somewhere in the bedroom and chewed it up. Now we know we need to leave some of their chew toys in the room with them to keep them occupied. They're such good boys!

This week is a short week. We are off Friday and - assuming we get the motor home back - leaving early Thursday to head to Mingus Mountain. We're really looking forward to taking the dogs camping in the forest with little/no electricity. It should be fun!

We hope everyone has a great week and an enjoyable and thankful Independence Day holiday. We should never forget the freedoms we have or what has been sacrificed in order to guarantee them for us! Also enjoy the picture of Drama sleeping on his back between the cushions on the couch.

June update

It's Saturday morning, bright and early. June has been a busy month. The first weekend of June, we stayed home and worked around the house and yard. The week of the 8th, I traveled to Charlotte, NC on business. I'm part of the Coast-to-Coast integration team and our in-person meeting this time was in Charlotte. The weather was great - mid-80's but the worst part was the humidity. 75% humidity was horrible! It was a great meeting, and I managed to have a little fun while there.

Five minutes after getting home from the airport that Thursday, I jumped in the car that Dennis had loaded up and we headed to the mountains. Thursday night, we stayed at Clint's Well. It was beautiful there. The temperature was in the 30's Friday morning when we took the boys out. About 10, we pulled out, hitched up the car dolly and car and headed NW to Flagstaff. We camped at the KOA with Rainbow RV and had a great time. The weather was beautiful, it's a great park, and we had a very relaxing time. It was quite windy but we staked down the Easy-Up and sat outside most of Saturday, enjoying the weather. Our site became somewhat of a gathering place for the people we know best from RRV. It was great.

We didn't even make it to the Pride Festival. Saturday morning, we met our friends from Munds Park at CostPlus WorldMarket and did some wine shopping. After we dropped the juice off at the RV, we then took the boys and headed to Camping World to buy some new chairs. We got some very nice lounge chairs and also stumbled on some very comfortable and light-weight chairs for our guests to use. It was time to replace our old lounge chairs and the old-school "Coleman" camping chairs we've been toting around for years. It was a productive shopping trip!

Sunday we headed back to Phoenix because we wanted to get the car dolly back home. We're planning to go to Mingus Mountain on 4th of July weekend and we want to take the Polaris up there. Next weekend we're hoping to retrieve it from Clint's Well.

Monday morning, Brother Boy woke me up at 4:30, pacing on the bed. He then jumped off the bed, so I got up and let him outside. He promptly went out and threw up. Poor thing was obviously having stomach pains - probably over something he ate that he shouldn't have. He came back inside, then got up again and needed to go out. He threw up again. When we came in the 2nd time, he sat on my lap in the recliner for about 30 minutes, sleeping soundly. He seemed to be better after that. I got showered and dressed, but when we were getting ready to leave, Dennis suggested that I stay home with him - so I did. He was pretty lethargic all day but did have an emergency poo-poo around noon which he finished the worst of outside. After that, he slowly got back his happy personality.

Tuesday I worked at home because we had our new recliners and fridge and dishwasher delivered. We got stainless steel to replace our 10 year old fridge and our recalled dishwasher. They look great! We also rearranged the family room to fit the recliners and took out the old recliner. The new ones have massagers in the back and seat and also have a full-chaise which the doggies LOVE. It's nice that we can both sit in front of the TV instead of me having to sit to the side of it. Tuesday night, I put the old fridge (which still worked) on Craigslist. I got about 10 calls/e-mails about it - I think I priced it too low - and Wednesday we sold it for $150. That along with the $150 back from GE on the recalled dishwasher, and the dishwasher ended up being about $100. Not bad!

Friday, I participated in the Junior Achievement Hula Bowl for Wells Fargo. I raised $120, most of which I donated, and had a really great time. Dennis stayed home and hung out with the dogs.

Today, we are hoping to power-wash the back patio and pool, wash the cars and get the new bed frame put together. It's going to be hot today. June has been the coolest June on record since 1913. We haven't had many days over 100 degrees. It's been great! I'm sure it's coming, though! We had a dust storm last night while I was driving to the Hula Bowl. No rain to speak of hopefully that's coming too.

We hope everyone has a great weekend. We'll blog more when we have time. The picture above was taken in the motor home at the KOA in Flagstaff. Aren't they all cute??