The week in April was spent preparing the van for the 8000 mile trek. This included a cooking day I used to prepare 23 meals in a bag so I didn’t have to do a lot of prep work on the road. I pressure cooked 2 fryers and shredded the chicken meat, separating it into baggies and freezing them. My meals in a bag had spices, nuts, pasta and whatever dry ingredients I needed for the meal. Each bag with some veggies and one bag of chicken was our main meal. I also froze salad meals with quinoa base that I would be able to serve over lettuce greens. It was a full day of prep that saved me a lot of work on the road. The chicken bags fit perfectly in the van’s freezer and I got wise and stocked the refrigerator goodies in boxes so they were easy to pull out and sort through.
We invited the family over for an Easter lunch with an egg hunt for the kids. Karissa and Michelle came over on Easter Saturday to dye the eggs for the Easter Bunny. We tried something Michelle found online and tie-dyed them. They were gorgeous! Using neon dye helped the colors pop.
Sunday morning the Easter Bunny hid the eggs in the backyard. When the kids arrived, we gave them a bag of goodies from Japan and then it was on to the hunt. Max used his new coolie hat to collect his eggs in. It took a while to find all of the eggs, then we sat down to BBQ tri-tip for lunch. A nice, relaxing, and enjoyable day.
This week we also found out that the tenants in our Auburn office building were moving out. They had rented from us for 21 years, allowed us to retire early and cruise the open seas, and were great tenants. It was a good run while it lasted. We met with a real estate agent the morning we left for our road trip and signed papers to put the building up for sale or lease.
After the road trip, we put the van in the shop to fix the engine light. A week later, they still haven’t figured it out but we are hopeful!
The tenants in our building move out June 3 so we had a couple of weeks to catch up on the house projects before we tackle the building clean-up. I was impressed to see how quickly everything in the garden had grown, especially the weeds. I think the back yard had more weeds than good plants. It took almost the entire rest of May to get rid of the weeds, trim things up, and get the place back in shape.
We headed over to the King’s abode with the kids and a couple of Brian’s friends to read through his screenplay. I’ve never been involved with this kind of thing so I didn’t know what to expect. But what fun!!! We were rewarded with pizza when we were done and offered up our comments to the author.
That evening, we treated Michelle and Eric to a wine and food pairing at the Rock Hill Winery in Loomis. It lasted over 3 hours and we had such a good time. I was the designated driver and got everyone home safely. We now are looking forward to getting together to share the wine Rog won in the raffle and the bottle that the Blooms bought.
Rog tackled the playhouse roof at the end of the month, replacing some of the wood shingles. He figures it will need to be totally replaced soon but has put it off with the repairs.
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