September 2017

We headed up to Granite Flats on the Truckee River on Labor Day to spend the day with the CLODs; cruisers living on dirt Lyons and Nordstrums. Bob had ballcaps, T-shirts and banners for all of us. We headed back after dinner in all of the traffic to be back to take care of the grandkids on Tuesday. Michelle had school but they didn’t so we got to hang out. The kids had cleaned their rooms so Max brought over an old toy rediscovered, his race car track. Like having a new toy all over again!

The next day was the home inspection for the home we had made an offer on. There were so many little things wrong with the place, we decided to back out. The place just hasn’t had a lot of love in a while. So, back to looking at houses. We placed 3 more offers on homes before our offer was accepted at a place on Amber Falls Drive. The 1031 rules allow us only 45 days to locate a property and our offer was accepted 10 days before we ran out of time. It should close a few days after the beginning of the month. This time, Rog did the home inspection and we had a pest inspection that came back pretty much clear.

Max had a Court of Honor with his scout troop where he earned a scout award, tenderfoot rank and a number of badges. The boys were taught how to escort their mothers to the stage to accept their pins. Nice to have a prayer and a pledge of allegiance as well.

For their anniversary, we had both kids for an overnight. They each had a birthday party to go to, so most of the late afternoon was spent shuttling them to and from. Luckily, the party times were staggered and it was easy to do a timely drop off and pick up. We also finished up the fairy houses and put them on the hillside.

We met the Zauchas for breakfast at Early Toast and caught up on the month’s activities. We went back to Early Toast the next day with Michelle as a congrats for her acceptance to Arizona State University. The waitress even recognized us and remembered our drink order. Amazing.

We got to take care of Princess while Ryan and Beth went to Chicago for a short vacation. Hard to believe she is as old as she is. Such a positive little gal and full of spunk.

At the beginning of the month, Rog installed the cupboard doors in the van. He still has to install the hydraulic closers, but it looks pretty neat.

The current house project is a new retaining wall along our side yard. The current one is made of telephone poles and planks of wood that were rotting out. We had 3 pallets of cement blocks and 6 bags of gravel delivered by Home Depot. Rog has been good about limiting his workload so he doesn’t kill himself or wear out his back. Every step is backbreaking; digging out the posts, cutting back the dirt and trenching, and hauling the gravel and rocks from the driveway back to the side yard. By the end of the month, he had finished almost half of the wall. All of the dirt he dug out had to put somewhere so I spent many hours sifting through the piles he dumped in the backyard to pull out the roots and rocks. Fun. But the wall is looking pretty nice!!

Meanwhile, progress is made on Whitney Boulevard. They replaced the sidewalk and curb, then filled in the trench. In October, they will finish up and resurface the street.