The rest of the story

There is a little more to the basketball hoop recovery mission that we went on. Lance has been wanting to shoot some hoops for a while. The last time they were here before we moved he dug out a basketball but it was flat and we couldn't find a pump for it. So now 3 months later he looked for 2 days before he found the basketballs. Of course they were still flat. I actually found a needle to blow them up before we found the little compressor. So now he had an inflated ball and concrete but no hoop. I tried to get him to use a box. (A peach basket worked for James A. Naismith when he invented b-ball). Lance didn't go for that. So the search for the basket was just the end to quite an adventure.

Thanks to Lance my house is now my home. There were basketballs, volleyballs, tennis rackets and tennis balls and footballs and soccer balls and softballs and gloves and baseballs strewn all through my house. Isaac got his 1st tennis lesson in my front room. He won't get many more lessons in my house........Lance.

I was able to spend the last 1 1/2 weeks with Lance, Molly and the boys. We are all tired. But we had lots of fun. I'll mention just a couple of highlights now. Yes, there will be more to come with pictures.

We went to the Hogle Zoo. It was lots of fun but those animals can be very scary. The 1st animals we came to was the elephants. We could hear a fake elephant making whatever noises elephants are supposed to make. There was a statue thing of an elephant. Molly took Isaac over to look at the elephant. Unknown to Molly that "statue" was the source of the elephant noise and it was motion activated. Poor little Isaac got so scared. It took quite some convincing after that to get him to look at the live elephants after that. Molly was telling her YW today that they had gone to the zoo. So one of the girls asked Isaac what he saw at the zoo. He thought for a minute and then he said, " Scary elephant". I don't think elephants are his favorite animal anymore.

Lance and Molly stayed in Elko longer than they had planned to. They went home to dead fishies. (They have a few feeder fish). The story went something like this. They told Isaac that the fish had died and they were in heaven. And Isaac said "fishies heaven Jami". I hope Jami takes good care of Isaac's fishies.

Reconnaissance mission

A long time ago, I bought Lance a portable b-ball backboard. It has been laying on the ground for a few years. Some neighbor kids decided that they needed to set it up and use it. That wasn't a big deal, but it would have been nice if they had asked permission first. Then I took it down and layed it in our front yard. One day I realized that the basketball hoop was gone. I wondered who ripped me off but had other things more important to deal with. (I know that is hard to believe. A few years ago things would have been different.) Anyway Lance is here visiting and he said that he thought it was down the street. We went for a walk last night to check it out. That backboard was too shiny to be ours. As we walked home through the neighborhood, we did find our backboard. It was deformed in all the right places. Now what do we do? Do we call the cops or wait until after dark and get it back or find some BIG friends to come help us? First off, we recruited Molly to help us. She can be pretty scary. We thought about using camo face paint but opted out of that. I kinda know the neighbors of the backboard thieves. She just happened to be outside when we walked up there. I asked her if she knew her neighbors. She said yes and told me that they were nice. (I like nice thiefs). She went with us to the neighbors. They said we could take back our backboard. This is the part that I think is funny. They said that they thought it was abandoned. We'll see how long the backboard stays here or if I have neighbors in my yard all the time.

A happy and sad day

Perhaps most of you were not aware of the motivation of my daily progress reports on the house. This was my way of sharing my progress with my dear niece, Jami, since she was too sick to come see for herself. I'm told that on the days when she was feeling good, she enjoyed watching the progress. My motivation to post daily was gone, when she was too sick to keep up on it. I am happy for Jami as her earthly struggles are now over. We will miss her so much. Even as a child she always had a sparkle in her eye and a mischievious grin on her face. That girl was always up to something!


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My blog will probably be quiet for a few days as I deal with this.

Jami, enjoy turning cartwheels, spending time with old acquaintances and enjoying life without tubes and mortal woes. You promised that you would walk with me in the hills and I look forward to now being able to enjoy my walks with you. Thanks for all the great memories. Take care.................. until we meet again. Love ya girl.

Update

Have you noticed the difference in the frequency of my blogs when I was living in the camper compared to living in my house? Yep. I have been neglegent. But obviously I haven't been as bored in my house as I was in the camper. And, yes, it does take a little longer to try to keep this house clean than it did the camper.

This is a picture today of my house and garage. It's looking pretty good, huh?
The garage has lights, inside and out. Now we just need to figure out how to afford the door. : ) They are going to pour concrete Monday. We will get the driveway and some sidewalk. And the guys bought house numbers and installed them. They even got them right. (That's a bonus.)

Mike is standing on his side of the garage. He is putting lots of thought into what he is going to do with his side. I'm just excited to get the freezer out of the shed and into the garage where it will be so much closer. And my TPN fridge will go on my side so I get lots more access to my pantry.

It was hard to give you a good perspectus on this hole. But let me just tell you that it is a serious hole. Probably 2 feet deep, at least. It is for one of the barriers we will be installing. I am thinking of painting a message on it like, I dare you to hit this. Mike says not to give someone the challenge. We have enough problems w/o an open invitation.

Before and After

The contractors were talking to me today about electrical outlets in the garage. We had already discussed it before but were just finalizing things. We discussed the placement of the outlet for the freezer and then talked about where to put the 220 outlet. Ron asked, now which side is "his" side? I laughed and said that's right don't put that on my side. I'm sure those guys will tell the "his and hers" garage story many times.

This is what the utility trailer looks like after it's little trip down the street. They are still able to open the back door so that is real good. This unfortunate incident couldn't have been more timely for us. We knew that we needed to put some kind of barriers up but I had totally forgotten about needing to do that before pouring the concrete drive. Ron thought about it over the weekend and this is his solution. He is going to dig some holes and put some cylinders in them before he pours the cement. Then he will take those out and put in cylinders that are just a bit smaller so Mike can remove them when he needs to. I said we should line them all across our front so no vehicles can get through it. Then we thought that maybe we could put in tire rippers like they use at parking lots. (That may not be too good for public relations.)

The next 2 pictures show what the garage looked like last Tues afternoon before we went to Panaca.

And this is what it looks like today. I was doing a little sorting in the "box" room today. I came across some stuff that I was trying to think where to put it. Then I realized that it would go in the garage. Yep. We are getting ready to have all the construction done and start junking up the garage. (That is what garages are for, right?)

My weight reduction plan.......any takers?

I have something for my intellectual type fans to solve for me. I have had some issues trying to keep hydrated. For some reason it is worse when I am away from home. Most of the time it is because I get tired and worn out and then my body doesn't work good and I don't stop and run extra fluids. But this time I kept myself rested and I ran extra fluids even before I needed it and this was the results...... One night I ran almost 3 liters of fluids in and still lost 2 lbs over night. Now how can that happen!!!! I did make 3 trips to the bathroom but certainly NOT 3 liters PLUS 2 lbs worth. I don't get it! Someone needs to figure this out. We could make lots of money off of "Marilyn's weight reduction plan". But meanwhile it isn't my idea of a good time.

I have to share my exciting evening with you. Some of you will know that our vehicles have been hit a few times by cars sliding or rolling down the hill. Well we had another run-away car incident tonight. My neighbor had an old truck he was towing up the street and around to the back of his house. The tow bar broke down the street before he got home so he wrapped a chain around the old truck and looped the chain around the ball on the pulling truck. We were watching from in the house and then saw the pulled truck break loose and go rolling (fast) down the street in front of our house. Our garage blocked our view but we could see that it did not hit any of our vehicles or our garage. But the question was, where did it stop? Well our construction workers had an enclosed utility trailor parked in front of our house. The truck hit it and pushed it down the street. The truck hit a "planted" railroad tie and stopped before doing any more damage. My contractors came to check our their damages. It smashed up the back of their trailor, but they can open the door. And their tools were not damaged. They said, "It's a good thing it didn't hit your garage." ANd then they corrected themselves and said, 'NO, maybe it would have been better to hit the garage, we know where we can find someone to fix it." That's my excitement for the night. Now we are thinking of where to put some poles to protect our garage.

We went to Panaca for a couple of days. Mike did some cleaning up and hauled some stuff off to the dump. He still has more stuff to get rid of. Stuff sure does accumulate. Mike took our dogs down there. Jessie has a little dachsund, Heidi. Heidi used to be afraid to go outside at all when the big dogs were there, but they are friends now. We were getting ready to leave and Heidi wanted in the truck. Mike put her on the front seat. Nope, that was not good enough for her. So he put her in the bed and she was one happy camper. She really thought she should go home with us. Of course she couldn't go with us because Grandma would miss her too much.

This is Mike's Dad's tombstone. It sure looks nice.

I have stalled out on my cleaning but I decided today that I needed to empty just one box and clear off one counter. I took a picture to prove that I did it. Guess I could take a picture of the box that I emptied. Maybe later.

At last

I can't believe that I am sitting on my couch with my laptop and no wires and I have internet. It is amazing! The phone company dug 2 holes today, one on each side of the road. I don't know what else they did but for the moment it worked.

OK family I need your feedback. Becky and I have done a little talking about Dad's b-day party. Becky has made up some very cool invitations. I don't want to give anything away so you will be surprised, but I think it will put a smile on your face. I need everyone to chirp in on the times for the day. I am planning to have our usual family lunch followed by Dad's open house. What do you think of the family eating together at about 3 followed by socializing and Rachel is putting together a "fun activity for us". It would be nice to do a big family picture also. Then we could get things set up for the open house to be from 6-8. Let me know what you think.