There it is! The view out my window…another day on the rise.

Looks like it is going to be a pretty nice weekend:

Not a bad forecast for a Minnesota January.  Been kind of a mild winter all in all, still no snow…makes me a little nervous, just waiting for the ‘other shoe’ to drop. 🙂

Mandy is two ears up these days!!  She was having so much trouble with one of her ears, I won’t even go into detail, but even a punctured ear drum.  She would keep the left one mashed down flat to her head all of the time.  It has taken us nearly a year to get a grip on her ear problem.  But as you can see, she’s listening with both.  So either we are saying a lot more interesting things around her, or it just feels better…good enough to raise.  Actually it looks a little odd when she holds her ears like that…I think she’s listening for the sound of Cheese, her favorite.

Mandy: And you know, cheese is pretty quiet, so it takes a good listener to be able to hear someone bite into cheese. I hear more than I let on.  TCHEESEIF

Happy Friday!

Uhhh….sunrise???

Nope, no beautiful sunrise photos to share today…that is fog.  Very cloudy from the upper atmosphere down to the ground.

Fidget: Not a spot of sunshine to lay in ANYWHERE. Yes, I’m grumpy….

About the most exciting thing happening the last day or two is that Mandy has decided to do weird things with her paws….like hold them like this…for no good reason.

Mandy: Boring me again, Mom.

Happy Monday!

Sunrise!

You can still see stars (planets – for you DH), it is such a beautiful clear sky.

A few light ribbons of clouds forming towards the top of the photo.

 

Good morning!

Coming to the end of the first week of 2019, well it is Friday…TGIF!

YaY! (The emoji that is supposed to look like me….;)  So weird.)

Fridays my husband works from home causing Mandy to be SO confused about where to lay…the office or the living room???

Mandy: Mom, can you please go sit in the office. I need to keep an eye on both of you.

Mandy: Compromise is tough…no bed, but I can see both of you from here when I need to. Just keeping my priorities straight.

Mandy: Or from here….

Mandy: We need a bed in the hall by the front door! You guys are making my life difficult.

Happy Friday!

Sunrise!

It’s all about the sunrise today!

It progresses so quickly.

And starts to take over the entire sky.

So vivid.

So beautiful!

 

Mandy: Yeah, beautiful.

Mandy: Is that all ya got today, Mom?

Mandy: Hummm….an even more beautiful sight.

Mandy: Now we’er talkin’ progression.

Mandy: zzzzzzz

Happy Thursday!

Sunrise!

Another beauty! Just want to mention that these photos are taken with my Galaxy 9 Note cell.  No enhancements.

Panorama photo above.

Winter is definitely here, but the holidays are over so the decorations began coming down.  The tree in the back yard is all snuggled in its box until next year.

Most of the decorations were put away inside but:

Yup…still up. We love the lights of the tree so it is getting one more week and then away it goes until Holiday season 2019.

The outside lights are still up, until the weekend as well. As it was pretty cold the last couple of days and we are hoping for a little bit of warmer weather (not with a windchill below zero), to take them down.

Mandy: Mom…

(quick stretch and yawn)…blurred sorry.

Mandy: You are boring me to zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz….

Happy Wednesday!

          Happy Birthday, Mandy!!!

11 Years Old! Waiting for her Birthday treat, still doing a mean tail spin and playing with her toys.

Of course there was a lot of this after all that playing – see below.

We love you more than words can express, Miss Mandy.

And

Wishes to all for a wonderful 2019!

Some of our kids come over to celebrate New Year’s Eve with us, which is fun. But let’s start with New Year’s Eve DAY!

Some snowing and a LOT of blowing going on.

Was also really cold outside, BUT it was warm inside.

Wish I would have thought to take a couple of photos before folks got here, but you can still see there was plenty of goodies to eat (and drink).

Games played, initial munching completed, we turned to Rock Band….a New Years Eve favorite.

Meet one of our drummers!

And our main drummer is below:

You go girl! 🙂

Because we moved in just a couple of months ago, the drums needed to be re-assembled, so we put our best people on that.  These are our roadies/techies….above.

One of the guitar players.

The other Guitar player.

Me…well….I tend to vocalize or do some drumming…occasionally both at once even when no one wants to hear me.  I am also paparazzi…if you want to purchase a photo of any of these famous rock stars, please let me know. 😉

Mandy: I am going to start a ‘GoFundMe’ page to purchase ear plugs.

Happy Tuesday!

and

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

 

 

 

 

Starting off with the sunrise this morning.

Beautiful…again!

Google decided to ‘help’ by sending me their ‘enhanced’ version of one of the photos I took this morning of the sunrise.  Sky was just not that blue….but it is pretty anyway.

Christmas Day…so for some reason, I didn’t take a photo of breakfast or dinner.  But I did capture some of the action between the eating.

Present opening and checking out the stockings too!

I think this one was a hit Auntie Kim!

It led to some sort of shooting contest to determine who could open their stocking first to see what was inside.

I am not sure who won…but it wasn’t me.  Might have been Gpa.  Zombie Nerf bullets flying everywhere along with a chainsaw sound….I made sure he took that one home with him! 😉

Another pretty popular present:

For those who are having a little trouble figuring the one above out – that would be a kitty with a beehind that is larger than the opening to the tunnel…Yes, Fidget our Maine Coone kitty.  AND he does get in it…regardless of the snug fit, at least part of the way.

My cats are weird.

(thought I’d get one of those…in – yeah that’s me in an emoticon)

After dinner there was some serious gaming taking place.

Ummm….no I didn’t win this either.  I came in third I think.  And if I didn’t, it is my blog and I will say I came in where ever I want.

The Chicago portion of our family didn’t make it to our house. but we did Facetime with them for a little while after dinner.

My daughter also texted me some nice photos –

That would be one of our Grandsons in his Fireman garb.  Well maybe not the pants, but he looks ready to put out all fires that fall within his area! The fireman clothes were a Melissa and Doug toy in one of the boxes we sent to their place.

Cute!

We are expecting quite a bit of snow in the next 24 hours or so…we will see how it goes. We are north of the Twin Cities now and so they are predicting a lot more that they should get in the southern suburbs. Right now we really don’t have any.  It is gray outside now and is getting colder.

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!!!

Happy Wednesday!

Sunrise today:

Half an hour later:

Another beauty.

While watching the sunrise I noticed the backyard Christmas tree showing its various colors vibrantly:

Nice!

Inside this morning:

The tree is at the ready for tomorrow morning!

Mandy: MOM….TAKE DOWN THIS WALL!  I can’t get to the presents…AND Merry Christmas everyone!

Happy Christmas Eve Day!!!

 

Happy Winter Solstice!

Doesn’t really look like this today.  This is a sunrise from a few days back. Now there is no snow and no sun. Cloudy, gray and dark inside the house this morning.

So…what’s new around here. Let’s see, OH yes….

I spent the last couple of days accomplishing a task I really dislike and I am not really very good at.

Gifts are all wrapped and ready! Yesss!!  Oh, and due to  Mandy, Fidget and Lemme not being able to wait for the proper time to unwrap the presents, we have a short Expen wrapped around the tree    No longer do we have a sad, lonely looking tree, it has lots of friends. Now it just looks incarcerated.

Also, a few days ago was my birthday and my husband gave me a new Galaxy Smart watch. I have since added a new face to it for the holidays!

Snow falls in the background, cute. And when I tap it, it switches to Santa.  This watch does a lot of pretty cool things.

I found out, using my phone, which is also only a couple of months old, I could make my on emoji.  So I did that – took a selfie and then it walked me through all of the options to create one that supposedly looks like me.

 

Hummm…so what I didn’t know is that it created an entire set of emojis doing different things.  I find them pretty funny and I was looking for a gray hair streaks option but it was not offered.  What???

Yeah…that’s me… I look just like that.

Anyway….okay moving on.

So dealing with this a lot these days – see below:

One little kitty…

With bad intent….

When you put this cat together with something he shouldn’t really have there is generally chaos, so I gave him a box he can get into easily. Normally he shoves himself into a very small box and looks like this.

We will have to see what he can do is a box that is larger than he is.

That’s it for now.

Happy Friday!

 

 

 

Okay – lots to cover so let’s get going!

Yesterday – yet another beautiful sunrise.  Not so today though, gloomy and grey.

This sunrise shot was from the day before the one above.  We have had warm weather for December and you can see there is a bit more snow on the ground in the above photo taken day before yesterday, than there was for the one taken yesterday morning.

Now I am going to complain –

So I started taking a new probiotic and when I opened the new product…this is what I found. This big plastic container held 30 capsules.  I mean seriously – what a waste of everything associated with this item.  Takes up too much shelf space, waste of resources, total overkill to sell the product.  So I won’t buy it again, I will look for another, plus when I got it the seal was broken underneath the cap.  I counted the capsules and they are all there, but I just thought is was disturbing on all counts.

Okay – done with the complaint. 🙂

Day before yesterday was my birthday and the kids came over in the evening for a little bit. Always so much fun to see them.

Especially my grandson.!

Who is generally pretty silly. This is actually a tree topper he has on his head.  But I think it fits him very nicely.  They were getting ready to leave and I had this hanging on my coat stand by the door, just to ‘holiday it up’ a little in the hallway by the door.  He couldn’t resist.

Last night was his first Band Concert and the 6th grade band rocked the house. Photos below

Waiting for it to start.

Getting ready to begin below.

Below – Playing in their Holiday Hats.

And the hat he is wearing actually is a Tigger Christmas hat his mom got when we took her and her husband to Disney World one year.

We have photos of her wearing it…I will have to find the photo and scan it in. It was before digital photos I believe.

And then it was over.

The kids cleaned up the stage, put chairs and music stands away and then came out to meet their fans.

Who is this guy in the funny hat??

Yep – the famous baritone player we had just heard on stage!  Job well done, Sir! 🙂

I also mentioned that I want to show you the decorations on the front of the house.  I will have to take some photos when it is dark out, I just never remember to do it.

But I did take some, though it is still light out.

First you can see  – next to none of the houses on our street are decorated.  Just a couple.

This is looking down the street toward the house, it was a bit darker outside but my cell makes the photo look lighter. Not sure why folks out here don’t decorate much.  Could be because, like us, they have just moved in, in the last few months?

Coming up on our house, that’s not one of our cars in front – the neighbors on both sides of us have their family over all of the time, and probably some friends….So there always seem to be cars parked in front of our house. Since they have their kids over so often, I am surprised they don’t decorate as well.  The neighbors DO say they really enjoy our decorations though.

Not a lot for the first year.  We don’t have our gutters on yet so we will have to take everything down so they can put the gutters on, otherwise we’d leave up the light ‘holders’ all the time. They are clear and you can’t see them very easily unless you hang the lights on them. So we stayed away from hanging them on the entire front of the house this year. We are getting older so maybe we won’t ever do more than this…we will see next year. But this year we were having to find everything due to only being in the house for a month at the time we hung this stuff up. So nothing real fancy.

Sunset!

Not out the window of our house, but close to where we live.  I always do sunrises but it was so nice out I just had to take the photos.

So gorgeous – never get tired of them.

Just want to leave you today with this thought:

Just sayin’….  😉

Happy Wednesday!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not much to talk about today but the weather… it is beautiful outside high will be around 35 degrees – which is fairly warm for December in Minnesota.

Another nice sunrise…can never have too many of those!

Still haven’t wrapped any presents to put under the tree.  I am still getting them in. Maybe I will start later today.

Poor little tree, standing all empty underneath.  Part of that is because I know the cats AND the dog will not leave the gifts alone and it would be nice to get to Christmas morning with presents all intact.

I thought I had a photo of the time I left Mandy home alone with presents under the tree…with no short little expen around the tree.  Let’s just say I found out a lot of things the kids were giving me ahead of time. 😉

BUT as I was looking for a photo of that (which apparently doesn’t exist) Look what I came across!

That was Mandy right after we got her.  We got her right after Christmas when she was 2 years old, now this year she will 11 on January 1, 2019.

Mandy now:

She almost looks like two different hounds!  All of the dark fur on her face has turned to white.  She is even sweeter now as an old lady than she was as a youngster.  Such a good girl…even if she does like destroying Christmas wrapping! 🙂

Ummmm – guess that’s it for today!

Hey, it’s Friday!!!

YaY.

Happy Friday!

Sunrise today!

 

Beautiful morning.

During the weekend we did all sorts of things.  One was to go past our old house and see what changes the new owners made…well on the outside, looks like they are also redoing the inside.  We were in the area and just did a drive by.

This is how it used to look:

Looks like they painted the brick white and though the garage doors were brand-spankin’ new – they changed those out too.  It’s all good – their house now.  A good face-lift for the place. They kept the front door, which was super nice with a beautiful side light, left it the same color. Good to see they are taking good care of it.

Another thing we did was go to the Monster Truck Jam on Saturday. That was fun! We enjoyed it.

This was the local guy from MN.

 

 

 

The Minnesota driver did really well.

This is Max D (I think his name is). He was super Awesome!  I have a video and I will see if I can get it up on the blog for folks to see.

And of course…

The ever popular Grave Digger was there as well as Son of a Digger.

Mohawk Warrior was there, he ended up losing his Mohawk when he landed on the roof  after a jump.   Even though he rolled his car at some point, he came back to do other events.  Some of the cars that were running, by the time they finished the free style event, only had the inside frame left of their cars left. The outside of the body was smashed all over the track.

And going also allowed me to see the inside of the new stadium – US Bank Stadium where the Vikes play.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are a couple of consumers I recognized….

Consuming…. 🙂

 

Mandy: TOO loud for me, I stayed home!

I like Christmas lights in the house (and outside too). I will have to get a photo of the outside lights.

 

Around here today:

Mandy has been playing a lot lately. Toys all over the place…

And the result is:

Mandy: Mom leave me alone…I’m tired! I have been working pretty hard!

And then there are these two guys –

Fidget

AND

Lemme

Both of them have ‘TROUBLE’ for a middle name.

Fidget: WAIT!, I have a middle name?????   I didn’t know that…..Cool!

Happy Thursday!

We had a lot to do this last weekend, mostly with the motorhome.  We had to drive it up to the dealer in Garfield, MN – couple hours away… and during the drive to pick it up there was hoarfrost making it look like a wintry fairyland.

Nope – not a black and white photo….this is actually the way it looked that morning.

Beautiful!

All we did is take the camper to ‘another’ place to have things done from the Dealer who did the maintenance.  Once it is done at the place it is at now…working on the chassis,  we will go and get it (this coming weekend) and take it over to another place where they will finish up the work needed and store it until we leave on our vacation in a few months.

And this is the newest member of our family…we will be paying for it for sometime to come. 😉

We needed to get a plate put on the car in order to accept the tow bar on the camper so we can pull it around.  Here it is attached to the camper.  Better photo at a later date.  It is a Chevy Equinox.

Mandy: And this is what you do on cold gloomy dayzzzzzzzzzzzzz……

Happy Tuesday!

Out our back window…Sunrise.  What a beauty it was this morning.

And yesterday you saw Lemme when I showed you the cat’s room.  Here is the ‘other’ guy..

Fidget is his name and he is a Maine Coon.  BIG guy, especially side to side. 🙂

Fidget: This house has GREAT window sills!!  I can sit on them behind the couch in the living room and no one knows where I am at.  Well…unless I want them to.

Happy Wednesday!

 

When we were building the new house here I wanted a glass tile backsplash in the kitchen.  I have quartz counter top, so I asked them to leave the quartz backsplash off.  Which they did.  About two weeks ago I finally got the backsplash, as we had to hire out the job.  Bought the tile first, then waited over a month to get their guys out here to put it in. I like certain colors of green, so for a bit of color, light green it was.

It took them a couple of days, though it wasn’t a lot of wall space.

 

I like it, now that it is done.

This is the counter by the fridge. (art work on greyhound chalk board courtesy of oldest grandson)

Also, we have an alcove above the fireplace that just begged to have a large round something.  My husband said….clock.  So it took me a while but I found one that I liked and ordered it.

This is how it arrived

 

Didn’t give me a lot of hope for what the item looked like inside!!!

But here it is and it was in perfect shape!  Keeps time beautifully.  Lucked out with that one.

SO…now that you have seen that photo…might as well finish the house, as family who have not been able to visit want to know what the house looks like.

First off…I think it looked a lot better before we put all of our old ‘stuff’ in it. 😉

But here we go, this is a one time thing and don’t look too closely please as I just shot these on a quick whim to ‘get it done’ and didn’t spend time cleaning and de-cluttering. We also are in mid-Christmas decorating mode, so not all done with it yet.

Christmas tree…it looks much prettier in person, standing next to my Grandma’s cadenza…an antique.  It got a bit banged up in storage and with the move, so I have just gotten some ‘stuff’ to do some minor repairs on some gouges and so on.

Some of these will need no explanation.

 

The white door you see next to the fridge is a very large pantry…I love it.

The white angel statue on the island generally sits on the dining room table, but we have a Christmas Train sitting on the table right now…so it has a new temporary home.

This is the sun room, not a great photo, but there are a lot of windows of course and a door to the outside patio…Mandy goes out that door for her business reasons. 🙂  The cats like to lay on that futon, so I have a washable cover I keep on it.  All in all, it is a very relaxed place, has a massage chair and is actually a very calm feeling place…now just can’t wait to see bathed in a lot of sunshine. Our weather has mostly been quite gray.

 

Living room – if you look out the window you can kind of see a big white Christmas tree we have out there.   It has colored lights inside of it and when it is dark outside it puts on a ‘light show’ inside the tree.  It is the only Christmas decoration we have in the backyard.

The master bedroom is off the main living room and has a little alcove that I am still trying to figure out what to put in it. So right now shelves with photos of family and other meaningful items.  On the middle shelf, there is a photo of my Dad when he was just 20 months old!  A recent find when unpacking everything.

Yep, master bedroom.

Master bath attached to the master bedroom.

 

 

Huge shower area – with tiled in drying area.

I really don’t even know how to show you the shower, but we love it.

The house is basically set up, for the most part, to be able to accept wheelchairs.  So all the doors are extra wide and so on.  The part to the right of this photo is full glass, with a film over it for a little privacy.  Again – not a great photo…but gives the idea.

Off the master bath is our closet which is a room in itself, however, looks a lot smaller since we put in the closet organizer units…still a work in progress.

 

Down the hall now –

Guest bedroom – double doors.

 

 

Two smaller closets in the guest room. (Kids, when you come…I will remove the dolls – no worries, don’t want to creep you out). 😉

A little further down the hall – it’s the office. And someone wasn’t feeling well so worked from home.  Though he is feeling much better now I am told.

Just next to the office is the ‘guest’ bathroom, or main bathroom.

Then going back the other way … (okay Google turn off the tree, Okay Google, turn off the lights… okay Google play Beatles music…or if my Grandson is here, Play Twenty-One Pilots) 🙂

Going to the left at this point gets us here:

Door on the right is the washroom, which has another door in it that leads to the furnace, water softener and so on.

Washroom.

Door to utility room to the left.

Yep – that’s the good stuff. 🙂

Then outside the laundry room to the right, or straight ahead in the previous photo of the hall you will see the mud and coat area, to the left of the hall is a door to the garage.  And the door that was straight ahead is the cat’s room.  Yes! our cats have their very own room, complete with an exhaust fan we had the builder put in.

.

That is Lemme posing for you, Fidget is hiding out in there. We also store a few things in there. Eventually we are going to put shutters on the windows there, but right now they can see the world and the world can see them back.

This is the coat and mud area, right outside the cat room door AND the garage door is right across from the bench.

And now we are back to the sink…this is the view.

Prrreetttyyy exciting stuff. 😉

Mandy: Yep, so exciting….I couldn’t be more excited.

Happy Tuesday!

It has been a little on the tough side to get time to do posts, so I am sitting myself down and getting one in today.

Mandy: Oh sure they were busy……..

…watching the Vikes play the Packers!and win!

Okay…okay Mandy, yesterday we worked on getting the Christmas stuff up – photos later, then took off and went to see Blaine take on Elk River in PeeWee Hockey. Oldest grandson plays and SIL coaches.  We always enjoy the games.  THEN we came home and crashed…watching the Vikes after a busy weekend.

Made our first Thanksgiving dinner in the new house this year.  Used to have double ovens, but now, since we have downsized….1 oven.  I will have to say I was having to concentrate a little harder in regard to ‘timing’, but it all came out okay. We fried the turkey outside, per usual and it went’ pretty well.

We did have only half the family here, and the Chicago branch….new baby…wisely stayed in Chicago given the blizzard conditions toward the end of the weekend, though we really missed having them, I was glad they decided to stay put.

and it made the first big dinner in our new place a little bit easier I guess. 😉

Didn’t get a photo of the turkey this year before it was cut up, nor one of it being cooked. But we will get it next year.

Friday we worked on getting the lights outside up, it took a little more effort and time because it is all NEW….so nothing rigged like at the old house where it took us 28 years to get things the way we liked.   Again, no photos yet.  I’m slackin!!!  I’ll get them.

Then we took off to meet the kiddo’s for dinner at Biaggi’s and a movie…Fantastic Beasts.

Dinner was good like it always is at Biaggi’s, but the movie was kind of a disappointment, then again it is clearly a set up for the next one.  Saturday, jeez, not even sure what happened on Saturday. Did we see the kids that day?  I know we worked on finishing the closet system we are putting in the Master Bedroom closet and went over to Costco…I think it was just the two of us eating at Pour…again – great food there.  Both of those places do great with Gluten free eating. Important with me being a Celiac.  I have to say though, the moon on the way home that night – gorgeous!!!

It was huge and just a beautiful orange-ish color.

In the mornings here, we are lucky enough to have a beautiful sunrise, when the clouds go away.  I think the only thing better would be to see the sunset…I love sunsets.  BUT here are what our sunrises look like in November.

So that about covers the Thanksgiving weekend in a nutshell.   We did get some of the inside decorations completed, not quite done there…again, all new space to decorate so different things happening than have been happening for the last 28 years.  But change is always good, though sometimes challenging. It’s all good!!!  Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday weekend!

Happy Monday!!

 

Hi!

I know it has been a little while but we have been pretty busy.  The RV resort on the Mississippi has shut down. We had left there to go and stay in Chicago because my youngest daughter’s 2nd baby boy is due. Then went back to our spot on the Mississippi river in MN for a couple of days to close on our new house and get our stuff out of storage.  Then drove back to the Chicago area and are patiently awaiting a new grandson.  Any day now!

While we were back at our place on the Mississippi it was looking pretty sad and deserted. We didn’t see anyone out, but we weren’t around much. We were dealing with closing and other things at the new house.

Lots of sheds still there of course but most all of the RVs were gone.  From the lot we are in on down in the direction that the photo is capturing, is considered a flood plain in the spring.  It doesn’t flood often, they say, but no one is allowed to keep their RVs there over winter and spring…well not until mid-April when the park opens. In the other direction there are still RVs but the flowers and lawn items are gone, things are covered up and no folks stirring.

Getting into the house itself was a pretty easy thing. Closing went well.  The only thing is that the outside isn’t finished.  The landscaping… it has been too rainy and is too muddy to take care of it and now it is just getting plain old COLD. The cold is coming earlier than usual and the rain (prior to closing) just would not stop.

So I didn’t see any escrow coming from the builders for the sod and landscaping….I complained. And was promised the company WILL be doing it.  This particular builder is very good and has an excellent reputation.  So we went through with it….feeling they will do a good job like the other houses that are surrounding us, that are finished.

The afternoon of our closing the folks doing the sod showed up.  They had already done the back portion of the yard, so they did the front (mind you…the front – did not do the side…)

The sod they laid already looked like it was dying to me.  And as you can see the landscaping around the house was still not done.

AND they planted the trees…if that’s what you want to call it…

 

That is just one of the two trees in the front.  The other was ‘bumped’ up too, but not as badly. I am not an expert of course, but I am wondering if the tree that is pictured will even survive the winter. The had them just laying in the yard at first…which we drove up and then put them in a hole that was not large enough.  Especially the one in the picture, then just threw some extra sod on that didn’t even cover the roots. So it is a big bump in the yard with exposed roots.

The story from our builder is that the sod is fine and the guy thought they planted the trees ‘bumped up’ like that so it would settle.  I know it is supposed to be ‘slightly’ above the ground…but this one…more than slightly.  Hopefully, it will turn out okay. When we left they still had not finished the landscaping around the house.  So we are hoping when we return all will be well.

 

We are still waiting for grandson #3 to come along.  Here grandson #2 (and his ducky boots) are playing at the playground while his mom keeps a close eye!

Ticktock, 😉

Happy Monday!

 

 

 

 

So we did the walk-through for our house. A few things that needed to be attended to.  The bathroom counter tops were pretty scratched up, so they will fix that. I think they will just buff out the scratches. There was no sod yet… who knows when they will get the landscaping done, all it does is rain there these days.  We didn’t get to walk around the outside of the house for the walk through. I didn’t like that, but the Capstone person conducting the walk through said there is another at 30 days, and if there was anything we find during that time, they would take care of it.

After that – it was off to Chicago for my youngest daughter and family.  I have to say, though it was gloomy most all of the way, it was a good time to see the color changes in the leaves.

We were moving along and it was pretty tough getting a photo, there were much, much prettier displays.  But this gives you an idea.

So we got into the camping spot at about 11 pm or there after.

Then yesterday worked from the camper, went and got our car washed, at dinner at the Casino (we are camping in the RV area of a casino, the only place we could find a spot). They gave us coupons, so we tried it out. VERY EXPENSIVE to eat there, so that was a one time thing. We stopped a minute to see the casino and I was sucked into a slot machine for about 20 minutes…hey – I doubled my money and left….helping to pay for dinner.  My other half doubled his money and lost it (talking 10 bucks here). Went back home and pretty much conked out.

Yesterday we also put up our Satellite, we haven’t used it for over a year.  It is always SO tedious getting that thing going.

An it was actually really sunny here yesterday, it’s been a long time since we’ve seen that much sun and I took the opportunity to clean the camper top to bottom, I could actually see everything. Nice! Cleaned the wood, all the nooks and crannies.

Then early morning today – a pretty ferocious storm came rolling through..and it is still gray and raining. But we are here, waiting for our new little grandson to make his appearance.

We just bring the rain with us where ever we go.

Happy Friday!!

 

The final day on the Mississippi for us, a little bit sad about it.. But mostly just because it is ushering change.  Funny how when you get older change seems to have even more meaning that it used to.

Today we do the Orientation and walk-thru of our new house.  As soon as we are done, we are taking off for Chicago, as mentioned in earlier posts.  We will be back, hopefully, on the 11th to close on our house and then will be off again to Chicago.  We are excited for the coming of a new grandchild, despite the craziness of the current situation.  And also excited to get into our new house. But first things first! 😉

However, it also kind of represents to me the beginning of a new phase of our lives. A little uncharted. But that is all for another day.

Today on the Mississippi it’s like pea soup out there.  Can’t see the other side of the river, it is raining and foggy because, just for today, the temps are going from being highs in the 50s, to a high of nearly 80.  No doubt sparking some crazy weather.

Where is the other side of the river?

Happy Wednesday!

Been pretty busy here. We are getting ready to do the walk through on the house we are building tomorrow, and then we’ll be leaving right away for Chicago to be there to help welcome a new little baby boy when he arrives.  Will be hanging with my youngest daughter’s grandson while they are ‘busy’ bringing the new little guy into the world.

But we *did* have time last weekend to hang with my older daughter and family, that live near us here in Minnesota.

This was the last weekend for the Ren Fest!

It was cold, gray and borderline miserable.  But we dressed for it and drank hot beverages.  Caught some jousting while we were there.

 

 

Grandson is into archery so he tried his hand with a crossbow.

 

And then there was the compound bow, which he has more experience with.

There are always so many things to see and do out there….and eat.

But something I hadn’t seen before –

A Tyrannosaurs Rex with fairy wings… hummm

Then things took a dark turn:

Yep – he was threatening to take the life of a skeleton…. 😉

Scary stuff!

After that we had a bite at Drake O’Neils, we went on to the 101 Market to enjoy the Fall Family Harvest Festival I mentioned earlier. (So from Shakopee to Otsego, MN)

As I kind of expected… jumping into the corn pit was first on the list.

Going through the corn maze…, the corn cannon, the potato launcher, funnel cakes, rubber ducky races were all on tap and enjoyed.

As well as the grandson taking a spin with the other guys out there.  There were a few more things but it was getting late and was pretty cold, so we called it a day

Really enjoyed it though.

I will also mentioned that – at the place we have been staying…it is looking kind of sad. Folks leaving, packing up their gear, taking pontoons out of the water and getting ready to store them. We are less than two weeks from them closing the place down until next spring.

The summer party is about over and has come to more of an abrupt halt than usual because of the cooler than normal Fall temps in September and the first part of October.

Happy Tuesday!

 

 

 

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!