April 2016

More van work, more landscaping. The van got its new bench beds painted and installed. We are still having problems with the electrical, but will have to sort that out after our week trip to Yosemite. Rog and I installed a table and finished the swivel on the driver’s seat. We filled the propane tank, stocked up the ice chest, completely washed and waxed the van and took off for one week in the park.

We hit Yosemite at a perfect time. It snowed 2 days before we got there and it snowed the day we left. The five days we were there, the sky was clear and the temps were in the high 70’s. The waterfalls were gushing and there were a lot of “extra” falls that aren’t usually seen. Phil and Lynda Adamson joined us to share the campsite and their daughter, Ahlani, showed up with boyfriend for a day. It was a fabulous week.

Meanwhile, progress was made on the front yard this month. We installed the sprinkler lines and Rog built a portal for the entry. A&A Steppingstone delivered our tumbled granite rock and Home Depot delivered the crushed rock, Mexican pebbles and sand along with the wood for the fences. By the end of the month, the pathway was in, the portal 90% finished, and the streambed about 50% complete. When we flushed out the sprinkler lines, and then installed the sprinkler heads, we found that one of the pipes was split. Unfortunately, the split was under Rog’s new pathway. It took him a couple of hours to dig it up and fix it. But now we are ready for plants!!

We attended a dance recital for Gateway Rocklin Academy. It was a fun evening and the kids did a fantastic job. Our date this month was with Max and he and Pops had a blast racing go karts at GoKart Racer in West Sac. Max had so much fine he asked if he could run the circuit again.

Max and Karissa were raising money for the American Heart Association and had a lemonade stand with brownies...so how could we resist?? We paid 2 visits to the stand.

Ryan joined us for lunch twice this month. The first one was to pick his dad’s brain about a gutter project he was tackling and the second was a treat for me to celebrate Mother’s Day. On Earth Day, he helped us haul all of the junk to the corporation yard for free day at the dump. SO nice to get rid of that pile!!!

At the end of the month, we met some friends for brunch at Venita Rheas. I worked with Apryl for years at Sutter and it has been close to 10 years since we had seen each other. Fun catching up.