2012: Chapter 17 - Family Fun!

Fathers Day and Bill's birthday were happily spent at the cottage with Cindy, Jeff, Erin and Kyler. Unfortunately, Bill had to spend most of the weekend working as a Park Ranger at Slide Rock State Park (he looks good in his uniform). He is going to live at the cottage this summer while working there. It is a good "gig" as he can get some projects done on his days off. One day he even rode his Harley over to Prescott to visit our good friends, Dave & Sara.

One of the baby birds fell out of the nest and didn't make it. We're not sure how many are still "living at home". The tomato and cucumber plants are thriving, but part of the tomato plant snapped off one day during a big wind gust.

We are all set to become amateur astronomers. The kids gave us a wonderful telescope and star book to view the night sky :-) We can't wait to start some serious stargazing!

Moonrise over Wilson Mountain

Grandson Kyler enjoying Indian Gardens Market

2012: Chapter 16 - Two Weekend Mornings

Traveling up north on Friday evening was surprisingly easy due to less traffic following the Memorial Day Weekend. The fun side to arriving then is getting to wake up two mornings to coffee, Wilson Mountain and Oak Creek’s soothing waters in the distance.

Our new neighbors have turned out to be a very nice family. We couldn’t have asked for nicer people. They are just really interesting, fun, funny and helpful. I have a friend for life in their dog, Takotah after giving him some dog treats.

Bill spent most of Saturday installing a gate at one of our deck entrances. Troy, our neighbor, came over to offer assistance and just at that moment we discovered his evaporative cooler needed some attention. So he and Bill got on the roof to fix it. Coming from Colorado and the Midwest before that, Troy had never even heard of a “swamp cooler”. While the guys did their thing, I painted the sliding glass door frame among other things.

The tomato and cucumber I planted last weekend lasted through the week. However, some type of critter is enjoying the tomato plant leaves. One of our neighbors gave me some advice so we'll see how it is next week.

The bird nest has definitely been leased by another expectant family. They basically moved right in after a few remodeling projects LOL. 

Sunday’s projects included installing molding around the sliding glass door and putting up three window frames/screens.

We left for home sometime around 6 pm and enjoyed the light traffic. It was nice to get back to the HOT (103 degrees) city when the sun had gone to bed!

Sorry no photos this week but I promise some next post. See you then!