Month: September 2018

Our days are now numbered here on the Mississippi. In two weeks we will be in our new house and the RV Resort area we have been staying in since mid-May will close it’s doors, so we have to be out by October 13th.  We will have to park it in our driveway for a few days. until we leave for Chicago for a couple of weeks.

But I am thinking, the camper could well ‘dwarf’ our house.  Having it in the driveway we will need to put cones at the end of it in order to be sure no one hits it as it will take up the full extent of our driveway.  Once we come back from Chicago it will sit in our driveway for a few days again while we winterize it and ready it for storage…until we get it out again in February 2019.  That is when we leave for a couple of weeks vacation in FL. to visit my Dad and do other things down that way.

It used to sit on a pad beside our old house, but the driveway of that house was over 100 feet long…like 109 feet.

Old house.

The driveway of the new house is like…not sure… 40 ft long?

RV

It’s about 38 feet long, but the roof of the new house overhangs a little the drive way so we can only come up to the edge of the roof with the motor home, so….didn’t plan on that part. 😦

Yeeeaaahhhh…..it will be close, the hitch will probably just hang into the gray gutter portion. (The hitch we use to tow our car behind the RV).  It will make quite the statement compared to when it was parked by the old house. 🙂

We have measured a couple of times to make sure it will fit.  We are not allowed to keep it by our house, city ordinances allow us 12 days at a time.  So we were told. That should be good enough to have it there a few days while we prepare to travel or after a trip to unload it.  Hopefully none of our future neighbors will ‘have a cow’ at times when we have it there.

Meanwhile – back ‘On The Mississippi’ things are closing down, people are already leaving or getting their rigs ready to leave.  It is now sunny (YAY), and in the 50’s.  It was actually down to 39 degrees for just a little while this morning. We have switched from AC to Furnace.

Fall is well upon us.

The photo above was taken about 10 years ago….in the foyer of the old house.  Both daughters and grandson playing nicely together. 🙂

Mandy: Was that car door closing Dad? Who’s there?

Happy Wednesday!

Glass work is in and done.

Main bathroom mirror is up.

Master bathroom mirror is up too – though needs cleaning. I’m sure they will get to that. In the mirror you can see the drying area of the shower and the toilet area.  Behind the door is the shower itself, (glass wall).

Glass wall of shower is in.

Pretty exciting stuff eh? 😉

 

They also have finished the 50 amp box for us to plug our RV into…it is the first little gray box in front of the Elec. meter.  However, they put the receptacle in upside down. So they will need to do a fix on that.

It is raining again, so the land around the house will be a quagmire. While there yesterday they still hadn’t finished the sprinkler system, nor had they sodded. So until they are able to complete the sprinkler system I doubt they will sod and finish the landscaping.

I may ride out and have a look later today but doubt I will see anything new.  What we need are a few dry days for them to get out there and get it done.  It is now 15 days until we close on the house.

 

 

It looks to be a beautiful day on tap with the high in the low 70s.  Though they are saying we could get storms. Below is actually the MOON rising last night.  My camera made the sky a little lighter than the sky actually was, but thought I’d share regardless.  We have been seeing some beautiful night skies over the river.

This morning –

Lovely sunrise.

Reflection of sunset using the side of the RV.

This last weekend we got to spend a little time with our kids on Sunday morning. We didn’t do Saturday because they were hanging with some friends of theirs so we decided to meet Sunday morning at a little farm, or Orchard, both actually… to pick raspberries and veggies. Perhaps even a few apples.

Above is my oldest daughter and grandson.

I didn’t get any raspberries, but they got a few. The we went on to look at all of the pumpkins growing. Lots of signs by several of the patches saying they weren’t ripe yet.

There were some pretty large ones out there.

We didn’t pick out pumpkins because it was still a bit early for that.

We did pick brussel sprouts, green bell peppers, tomatoes, green beans and Jalapeno peppers.  They also had some tiny pears that were very tasty, so we got a bag of those.

They had all sort of things out there to pick, carrots, zucchini, strawberries, squash, herbs.  Of course you needed to come at the right time.  But it was fun. Normally we go to other more commercial orchards and they have playgrounds, shops and just a ton of stuff to do, very commercial.  But it was nice to go out to a beautiful area and just be able to pick all sorts of things.

After hitting Target to get a few more things with the kids, we went to their house and took care of our cats, then we left the kids and we went back up to our area and our RV.  On the way we pass 101 Market in Otsego, which I really like a lot. They have been setting up for their Fall Festival, which I had no idea was so big and awesome! The kids weren’t with us, but they would have enjoyed it.

Some photos from the Family Fall Harvest Festival.

Pumpkins!

Face painting:

 

 

Pumpkins everywhere of course!

 

Petting zoo.

Games.

Corn Cannon

Jumping

Horses

Racing

Food

more food.

Not only does it have a HUGE corn maze outside, it also has corn to play in.

However, you will get no help from me when it comes to getting it out of your pants when you are done!

.

More pumpkins and, HEY, a train outside. Sorry, all the cars are full, gotta’ wait for the next one!

And more pumpkins and a HUGE Pumpkin you can jump in with a rope spider web to crawl on out in front of it.

This place has EVERYTHING including……

Lots of very nice Halloween and Fall decorations to purchase.  And of course, Pumpkins!!! So clean and spacious, the parking lot was full and people parked down the road, still it didn’t seem overly crowded. Nice place!

A lot of rain overnight, so though I haven’t been over to the house yet…it must be more of a mud pit than it already was yesterday.   I will probably get over there later today to see it. Can’t get around the outside much because I already lost my shoes in the mud once…not doing *that* again. (It sucked them right off my feet…was not a fan of standing barefoot in a bunch of mud trying to get my shoes back, they were stuck down in the mud about a foot deep, fool me once… duh).   Long story….

Yesterday the cleaners were there when I got there.  I’m kind of surprised they did this already, but I suppose it helps them see what they still need to fix and unveils the floors to make sure all is well with the floors.

Cleaning the main bath, no mirrors yet.  They must be saving most of the interior glass work for last.

Kitchen…I would really like to get in and look at it better, but I haven’t gone in at a time where I could do that without bothering someone.

Floor in living room – still wet from them mopping.

This was a really dark and rainy day out so the photos reflect it and the cleaners had all the lights on.

Sun room – where the ceiling fan will go is a light bulb for now.

Doors are installed for the closet in the office….and occasional bedroom.

Guest bedroom floor is looking good…I forgot to look inside the closets – that is where all the paint was on the floor.  I will be looking to check that out too next time I manage to get in…which may not be until the walk through at this point.

This is the bench area as you come in the door from the garage.  The door to the left of the photo is actually the door to the ‘flex room’ which will be our storage and cat room.

Laundry room sans washer and dryer which are a slate color.

Master bedroom floor.

Master bedroom – knock down ceiling – awaiting ceiling fan installation they installed just a light bulb.

Master bath – elec. plate missing on the wall, no glass yet. The shower to the left of the photo does not have the glass in yet…that wall you see behind the door is going to be glass. It is a big shower with a drying area, so no curtain needed. You go in and out of the shower on the end you cannot see in this photo.

AND we even have a toilet…who knew… 😉

Linen closet is below:

The master bedroom closet it HUGE…love it! (Below)

It is probably as big as the flex room.

We will be putting in built ins like we had at the old house.  It takes some time to do that as we did it ourselves at our old house, but it turned out great and we loved it. So we will do it again, just have to figure out how we want to configure it and what pieces we need. That will be going up soon after we move in because we don’t have drawers otherwise and will be living out of boxes except for the hanging items.  Don’t want to spend money on furniture we won’t keep using.

The next photos are for Bruce.

Master bedroom – tv ready. Special connections in the wall. TA DA!

Window screens were in the garage. You can see how wet it is outside…the first part of the garage floor is wet – looks like there is a blue piece of tape which means something needs to be done.  I’m thinking they need to get the paint off the garage floor?

AND it looks like the 50 amp for the RV has been completed, though I couldn’t get over to the box to look at what is under the cover, so will try to look at that.  Might wear my puddle jumpers so I don’t lose my shoes again in the process.

 

 

Still pretty dark outside and not a lot of light coming in the camper at this point, even though all the window shades are open.

It looks like this outside:

That is not ALL rain, there is some fog out on the river.  The temp outside is 55 degrees right now.

They said we were supposed to be getting rain later this morning but…

I’d say they are a little off on that.  They are saying ‘no sunshine’ today and with how things are looking at this moment, that’s a pretty believable forecast.

Happy Wednesday!

 

 

 

Folks were working in the house when I got there in the afternoon.

So I went in and snapped some photos.

The place is pretty much just an all out mess right now. It has broken out in blue dots of tape all over the place. Marking imperfections would be my best guess.

Some of the paper protecting the floor has been torn off from people coming in and out to do their work.

This is the main bath….guest bath or whatever you want to call it – toward the front of the house. Faucets are on and TA DA…we have a toilet!

Cultured marble counter top and faucet in main bath. (above)

Below is the laundry room, the washer and dryer will be delivered the day after closing.

Yes, pretty unimpressive but hey, it is just laundry!  This time I have a counter and sink in my laundry room.  There are shelves on the wall they are not in the photo….to the right over the washer and dryer.

Thermostat and, not sure what the thing above it is,…April Air?  Looks like the paint around these two things could use a little work as well, but not seeing any blue tape.  If it isn’t looking better by Oct. 4th…it will end up being a walk-thru item to be fixed.

There are two closets in the guest bedroom.

Right closet.

Left closet – yikes look at the flooring.  They will be cleaning that up before we close.

Kitchen – the pendant lights are up, dishwasher is in, which is hard to see in this photo, but you can see the handle of it on the bottom right, next to the sink.

Guys working on the master bathroom. There will be a large mirror over the vanity.

Fixtures in the shower.

Right now, it is pretty hard to even imagine this place ever looking nice…or clean. 😉

 

 

 

 

 

Went over around noon and couldn’t get in.

But I noticed they had finished the lawn sprinkler system…it looks all in place.

Not sure what those red lines across the dirt are for.  Probably utilities of some sort…should have read the red flag, they probably go together

Also seeing blue squares of tape on things…as you see on the front door here. I am going to assume this is to indicate things that need touching up or fixing before the ‘orientation’ (or walk-through) about a week prior to closing on the house.

 

It is 58 degrees outside and dreary. People are beginning to leave to go to…where ever they go for the Fall/Winter season.

The place here is starting to close down.

Pool is drained and covered – done for the season.

Lots are starting to empty. Mandatory closing date is October 14th.

That is when we will be removing our RV.  Because we close on our house October 11th, we will be sleeping here that night because we get our furniture October 12th.  Unlike the old house, we can’t keep the camper at the new one for storage.  We have a storage space lined up elsewhere. Of course, we will have to pay to park it there.  Our camper can sit in our drive way for a few days for us to ready it for travel, but we can no longer leave it plugged in during Spring, Summer and Fall, with the food in the fridge – ready to go all of the time.  So it is a bit of a trade off… 😦  But it is…what it is.  So the camper will be coming to our house on the 13th or 14th, depending on how moving in is going.

Also, we will be trying to keep it around because of our Daughter in Chicago is expecting and we plan to go to Chicago and stay in the area around October 19th.  We do have a plug for it installed in the new house outside of the garage area to have it plugged in for the few days it is allowed to sit in our driveway.

It is pretty apparent that Fall is arriving in Minnesota. Mandy and I were walking and the wind was very gusty, a storm blowing in bringing with it cooler temps. Leaves were swirling all around us with the threat of rain.  I could feel the temperature dropping from the upper 70’s to the upper 50’s as I walked. It was like the AC had been turned on outside.

I had been at Target earlier and saw the wall clouds moving in, so I hurried to get home to walk Mandy before the rain began.

Also, this last weekend, we did some shopping for the house…mostly looking, not buying, because we don’t have anywhere to store the items we want to put into the house right away…because of not getting our furniture until the next day. Then met up with our kiddos for dinner and just some general walking/shopping …messing around.

We had a strange visitor while shopping –

Chewbacca is that you? Turn around….Chewy let’s see your face!

i

Wait…I know this guy…!  Fool me once…. 😉

Happy Tuesday!

I ended things in Part 1 with us taking off from the flooded campground near Chicago and heading out to Florida.

Trip went well, it is a long two days of driving for 12 hours each day and pulling in someplace where we can get a drive thru so we don’t have to unhook the car, setting up, eating, sleeping and then packing the camper back up and taking off as early the next morning as we can.

Hey! That’s us being reflected in the back of that semi!  No we weren’t tailgating, we were sitting still during some stop and go traffic.

On to our visit with my Dad.

Dad is doing fine and had made fast friends with his neighbor’s dog, Elvis.

Dad carries dog treats in his pants pocket just for Elvis (well and other dogs he runs into when he is out and about).

We had dinners at Eaton Beach or Bonefish Grill every evening. Good stuff!!

Did some driving with Dad so he could re-see many areas he had not seen for quite a while. Went to the Market of Marion and walked around.

We are going to be down to Florida again in a few months and plan on visiting Dad again, but also to stay a few days at Beverly Beach a bit south of St. Augustine. So we also drove out there to see what we would be getting into for the next trip out to Florida.

Just a beautiful beach

Our motor home will be right above the beach with this view-

Yes, there was a motor home in our spot when we visited, but we were standing right next to it.

So there spots are on a seawall sort of thing…cement…the yellow is the curb where the wall stops, then there are stairs down to the beach.  It was actually a rainy day – you can see if you look toward the cloudy area – looks like rain coming our way.  But it was hot and sunny when we were there.  Not many people on the beach though…a weekday right after the kids returned to school after summer. I am excited to spend a few days there.

One of the days we were out messing around we saw this:

Hummm – and it turned out to be:

Yes, a Black Bear cub.

We didn’t hang around…his/her Mom must have had it stay in the tree while she looked around other places.  Though it wasn’t doing that good of job hiding. 😉

We were looking for the Mom, but didn’t see her until we went down the road a little ways and on the other side was a Mom ‘possibility’  A big Black Bear.  Not really sure it was the cub’s mom or not…and we didn’t stop to ask her.  Tried to get a quick photo of the larger bear, but just couldn’t get a good shot from where we were (which was not all that close). 😉

 

We also went by Dad’s old house which was a manufactured home, single wide with a screened in porch and an added sun room.  Built quite a long time ago….nearly 40 years ago?  39?  Not totally sure. But when it was sold they came in and took it away to re-purpose it and donated it to FEMA. New residents build a slab home…looks pretty nice.  But then so did my Mom and Dad’s house.  Still, it was interesting to see the change.  My Dad took his golf cart over by the house on a daily basis and watch the entire transformation.  I believe he has even met the folks that now live there.

That’s pretty much the story for the Florida portion of our trip. Good trip back – again a couple of really long days driving back. But no problems!

And Today…On the Mississippi:

Hot Hot Hot and Humid!!

Mandy: Shade….think shade, Mom!

Happy Monday!

The house is deemed about 90% complete now. Still everyday seems to bring something new.

We had the window measured for window treatments. 14 windows some larger. More windows than we got treatments (shades) for in our old house which was twice as large. There, we were on a treed lot and actually didn’t get window treatments for all our windows.  But this house is all on the ground floor and doesn’t really have any trees that are big enough to block sun or the fish bowl effect.  So it is window treatments for all windows except the high ones (transoms). EXPENSIVE!!!  Bu!!t we had most of our other ones at the old house from the day we built it, to the day it was sold…so nearly 30 years.

We figure these will most likely l figure these will last us quite a long time as well.

Now photos:

Thermostat and doorbell are in.

Lights are going up, These pendants will be hanging over the island.  Which you can see also that the counter tops are in…quartz in the kitchen area.

Front foyer light is hanging.

The above is the ‘flex’ room that will be used for the cat’s litter boxes and storage.  You can see in the ceiling we have had an exhaust vent fan in, and you can also see the smoke detector and light.

Master bathroom light, counter top is in. Can’t really see it…plastic still covering it.  A large mirror will go on the wall and to the right you see the closet and some of the shelving inside it.  There is another closet to the right on that, that has a door on it – that is the linen closet.

This is the dining area in front of the sun room. Lights going up.  Not sure how much I like the location of the chandelier, or the chandelier itself.  We had a couple of light packages we could choose from that were included.  So we really didn’t get to pick out the lights. No doubt, down the road, some will be replaced.

The other white square to the left will be a ceiling fan that we have picked out, not yet purchased, but will have installed after closing on the house.  They just prepped the ceiling for the fans in the sun room, the living room and the master bed room.

They have the outside lights on AND these guys are finishing up the installation of the sprinkler system. Most likely our sod will be in this week.

Back door above…coming off the Sun room.

The circuit breaker box is filling up…because:

We have appliances now. The air conditioner was running when we were there, so they are testing out everything to make sure they work (not the appliances, but the furnace, air conditioner….air exchanger and so on).

Getting ready to put the dishwasher in.

It’s all coming along!

Over the Labor Day weekend and on into the weekend that follows it, our Motorhome is in travel mode, instead of the bank of the Mississippi River in MN. Our youngest daughter lives in Chicago and my Dad lives down in Florida.  So we make a yearly trek from Minnesota, stopping for a few days in Chicago and then going on to Florida…then back to MN in 12 days time.

During that time in Chicago we celebrate our youngest grandson’s birthday – this year he turned 3.  His mom is expecting his little brother toward the middle to end of October – so we will be going back there. Hopefully before she has the baby to take care of my 3 year old little grandguy while she is in the hospital giving birth to his brother.

Here are a few photos from our trip.

My oldest daughter and family join us for the ‘Chicago’ portion of the trip. It is a nice little family get together for a few days, then they drive back to MN and we go on to FL. Here we are in youngest daughter’s front room. She is sitting on the floor, the older daughter is sitting on the couch – that is her husband next to her on the couch.  My oldest grandson is in the background. And you see the now three year old sitting next to his Mom on the floor.  Oh and that other guy. standing beside the couch – no idea who he is. 😉

We did several things, but it was pretty rainy while we were in Chicago. So many things  we did were inside or around their house.  One thing was visiting the Chicago History Museum.

 

The trains in the museum are popular with the grandsons.

Oldest Grandson found a guitar to play.

Hung out at some playgrounds where you really can’t tell who the kids are and who the grandparents are sometimes. 😉

Also, they have a roof deck, so we spent time up there….

There was swimming and water balloons:

Whoa…someone was pretty excited to get in the pool!!

There we go, way to be, Mom!

Now we are in business….let the water-balloons begin.

On the way to another park,  you can see that my 3 year old grandson is just another Chicagoan talking on his play cell phone…walking and conducting business at the same time. His body guards surrounding him…uh must be a celebrity!

The guys at the park…doing what guys do…again, how old?

When we ‘camp’ in Chicago to visit our kids, we actually are a little over an hour away from their house, because there is really just no where close in Chicago to camp.

But where we were camped it just rained non-stop…pouring constantly, thunder, lightening – we had it all.

This is where we went in and out of the campground

This was the clubhouse where you signed in and did other things.

Luckily for us we were camped on high ground and only had to walk lightly through a few inches of water outside our camper to get to our car.

You can see the ‘undercarriage’ lights of the camper next to ours reflecting in the standing water.  It was quite the mess, so we didn’t spend any time there. Sometimes the kids come out to the camper and we do things around the campground – but not this time, it was too big of a mess. Even the playgrounds were flooded.  Everyone in tents went home so only bigger RVs were still there.

The day after Labor Day, the oldest daughter and family returned to MN, we moved on to Florida.

This was a pretty interesting cloud we saw shortly after getting underway on the second leg of our trip.

Tomorrow I will cover Florida….it’s getting a bit on the long side here.

Happy Thursday!

Haven’t done posts for nearly 2 weeks due to being out of town. So here are a few photos.

This is in the kitchen, the floor is in. Most all of it is covered in protective paper right now because they were in there sanding the walls for another coat of paint.  But you can see some of it. The cabinets are covered with dust right now from the sanding of the walls.

Porch and walk are poured.

Driveway is in. And the garage door is on.

The sod is done UP TO our house and they are starting to do our landscaping, soon the sod will be in.

This guy is putting in the sprinkler system and doing other prep for landscaping.

Those photos were taken on Tues. , then Wednesday I went back and was to be there to have the windows measured for shades.  The guy never came.  So will go again today hopefully he will be there this time.

Here are photos from yesterday – after a huge storm went though.

The gas company paid our house a visit. He was over working on the gas meter from what I could tell.

A total mud pit…yucko.  But I saw the garage door down….which puzzled me why it is such a different color…it is supposed to be close to matching the trim…but I think, looks pretty ugly.  None of the exterior has gone the way we thought.  Very disappointing. 😦  Except the roof… and the shakes (?) placed in the peak of the house. The front door is nice too.  The colors were all selected together in the design center, but perhaps the lights in the design room were making them look different? Wish we’d have taken the samples out into the day light.  The siding is supposed be a greenish gray, not a bluish gray. The trim was supposed to be a cream color, but next to the garage door….it looks white, and to me – making the garage door more of a ‘yellow’.  Anyway, not sure what we can do about it now.    It just doesn’t look like the garage door is in anyway connected with the colors on the house.

And the air conditioner is in place as you can see on the side of the house.

The counters will probably be in this week or next. So that will be interesting.  They were putting the hardware on the doors when I went to wait for the guy that was to measure the windows.

Less than a month until closing.

 

Liquid sunshine and celestial bowling.

I remember, when I was a little girl I would be afraid of the loud claps of thunder and lightening in thunderstorms.  My Mom used to tell me not to be afraid, it was just the angels bowling in heaven and when they make a strike….there would be lightening.

Okay – maybe a little bit odd, but my parents were bowlers.  And it did kind of calm me down – though I never really totally bought the idea. 😉

Today, they must be having a bang-up day in the celestial bowling alley! It has been thundering and lightening for quite a while, getting louder all the time. Not to mention the continual pouring rain.

I need to go out soon so I hope it simmers down some.

Happy Wednesday!

While driving today a bridge we went under was reminding us of  a day none of us shall ever forget. 9.11. Cranes holding American Flags. Banners on both side of the Bridge and people on the bridge (first responders) waving (I waving back). Brought tears to my eyes….remembering. The thing in the middle of the sky over the bridge was another flag that had been strung between the two cranes, however, pretty brisk winds here in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota this morning, so you cannot see it very well. God Bless America! We are so lucky to live in such a wonderful land.

And let us also not forget: