The View

This is the view of the desert Mt's from our house upstair window. Its realy beautiful and Dan and I have both commented on how when we used to live out here nearly 18 years ago this part of town was the way out desert and nobody lived out here.

Also we have living in our nieghborhood a family of quail's a Dad, Mom, and 4 babies. We see them cross the street, or in our yard looking for worms after the sprinklers turn off. They are super cute and we get so excited when they stop over for a visit.

(look closely at the brick wall in the top picture)

During

Here are some "Men at work" pictures

The lighting fixtures got changed out...thank goodness!

One serious eye sore was the garage. Spilled Paint in a heap of paint cans, a broken down old half built shelf and stains on the walls and ceiling.

Look at that Dan go!

Like "HULK" he tore out that shelf and we painted and cleaned and the job is 95% done, the flooring is all thats left. We decided to do an appoxy since the spilled paint (even after we cleaned it) makes it look realy bad. We decided to go with a teracota color in salute to our Spanish tile garage in Spain!

I ll post it when it is all done!

Also Ed and Dan replaced the faucet in the kitchen sink with one that doesnt leak and has a hose for spraying!

Look at how it is all coming together!

The Before's

I didnt think of the taking before and after pictures until we were already knee deep in some of the projects, but

I wanted to do it later rather than never. Nothing in this house was in great need of repair, mostly updating and thats kinda nice because you like to put your own touch on things. Well I should say I liked to , Dan who has had to be the handy man may not like it very much.

Although I should say for a guy who doesn't consider himself handy has done plumbing, eletrical and painting all this last few weeks! He has been amazingly handy!

As we go along and get some of these projects done Ill re-post the "Before" so you can see the differance side by side but for now this is what we are looking at! (top to bottom)

Pic #1& 2-

Master bathroom = shower door thats off balance so its hard to open and shut and a crazy blue wall. Dan did put in a new shower head this week so we have geat water flow and pulsating massaging!

Pic #3-

Ok so my parents built a house in 1982 and they installed these exact lighting fixtures. Why are they in my house built in 1994? NO longer!

Pic #4-

Master bedroom.....same crazy blue wall!

Pic #5-

Logans bedroom , Verticles??? Realy in a bed room? (all the bedrooms have them, with missing pieces) Hot pink too, GREAT!

pic #6-

Bathroom....thats right, lime green and fusia and pruple polka dots. Who wouldn't right?

Im surprised its still there! Its hard to see in this room.

pic #7

Paiges room, ok so we are almost ready to post the "Afters" on this room. Let me just give you a hint, 5 layers of paint to cover these colors!

Pic#8

The front of the house

It will be painted sometime soon and the garage floor will get an appoxy, as well as you can see how bad the yard is. It was so over grown and full of weeds since no one has lived here in a LOOOOng time. Landscapers took care of that and I am glad to say patches of green are growing back!

Pic #9

Yes thats a hole in the wall, used to be a doggy door, now its open for any critter that would like to find thier way in. (Fixng that was one of our first days )

Well, there are a lot more but its all more of the same...wierd paint sceemes and updates. I will post it all as it starts to get done!

First Day of School 2010/2011

Logan - JR. Mt Ridge HS
Tori- Freshman (Aslo at The Ridge)
Seth - 5th grade Mrs. Kegal @ Copper Creek
Paige - 3rd grade Mrs. Coghlin (@ The Creek)

Honestly I did not give them props and pose them. Tori was eating an apple for breakfast and Logan was bringing the Bible!

Luci

Luci was one of the reasons I was so excited to come back to Arizona. I have lived away for 17 years and while I was having a blast all over the world, I missed out on the first 2 years of this cute little nieces life. She is soo much fun. Her parents...My brother Matthew and his wife Kara had us over for Mexican food when we first came in and Iam not sure what we loved more the yummy yummy food, or the great entertainment via Luci!

My sister inlaw is a teacher and a crafter you can see her blog at mineforthemaking.blogspot.com

and Matthew is a musician google his band .. Incidental

Philli Beef Stake

In Philadelphia...we had Philli Beef Stake Sandwiches!!!

YUMMY!

(Except Paige ...couldnt convice her it was important enough. SHe had a hot dog.)

The Trip

So it wasnt that bad. I was dreading all the hours being on the plane and the transfers and the checking and re-checking bags that you have to do on international flights.

You know in Europe those cart things that you haul your luggage with....FREE

In Philladelphia (Filadelfia in spanish) $2.00 and on Phoenix $4.00

What was I thinking moving here?

We got in fine and got to bed right away (9pm ish) and were wide awake at 5 am

Thats not too bad. It lasted a couple of weeks but its not a bad habit to be in..."Early to bed, early to rise.."

Dan had a bit more of an adventure than we did. SInce the Army paid for comercial flights for me and the kids Dan decided to save the money and fly "SPace A" (A military benifit to fly on cargo planes when they have room) It took him 4 days to get here but he made it and said he would do it again, so all in all not too bad of a trip!

Our Irish Friends

Yet another fun day at church we spotted another family ...clearly not Spanish and they

spoke english to our excitment. Theyw ere from Ireland and on 2 week Holiday. We invited them to our Paella dinner for a real taste od Spain and Tori and thier daughter Elli hit it off right away. They ended up spending a few days hanging out and even having a slumber party. We learned alot about Ireland from Elli. She said us Americans made up Lepracons "Why would we make fun of our selves with goofy little drunk midgets"

Makes sence to me!

We loved having them over and getting to know them. We hope to see them next year on thier trip to Utah!

The night before

What do you do the night before you are making an international move? You have a 8am flight which means you need to be at the airport at 6am. How might you spend your evening? With Friends of course. We invited all our favorite friends from Spain and fired up the pizza oven again! We swam and talked and ate pizza and ice cream sundays. Oh it was a great evening!

A great way to spend your last hours(for the year) in Spain!