Want To Change Places?

I'm not sure who was more scared on this ordeal - Glenn or me?  The flashing has come loose on both sides of the house and whenever it's windy (which seems to be all the time), it bangs and bangs.  There also is a small space up at the top that is open and birds go in and make nests during the summer - I've asked Glenn to PLEASE patch it and the time had finally come!

He borrowed scaffolding from a friend and then propped the ladder on top of that - I was so nervous I could hardly watch................but he accomplished it and it only took 5 times up and down that ladder!

Now to move it to the other side of the house where the driveway sits at a 45 degree angle - should be interesting!!

Bargains and More Bargains!!

After a 4 year hiatus, the 4-H Auction was back - true it was on a much smaller scale and there was no "live" auction, just a silent auction, but never the less, there were bargains to be had!!

Since it was in Divide (just a hop, jump and skip away!!) I rolled in right when it started and began placing my bids - over and over and over again - after all, it's for the kids right?

And what did I walk away with?  Mostly gift certificates as I sure don't need more "stuff" in the house - in fact the only 2 items that I had to carry were a set of silverware for the new 5th wheel and some ratchet tiedowns for Glenn!!  Don't you love my sideways picture?

But the gift certificates consisted of EVERYTHING that I would have bought anyway so what a bargain:  $25 gift certificates to Carmen's and Russ's (both restaurants), a $25 gift certificate to NAPA auto parts, $40 gift certificate for gas from Loaf and Jug, full service oil change from Rapid Lube, 1 dozen farm fresh eggs per month for the next 6 months and a cord of split, dry firewood!!  The best bargain for $5.00 was a certificate for 2 free hours of bobcat work as long as you purchased 2 hours of work from the guy- which was perfect as we need driveway work done very soon!!

So the total that I paid for all of the above:  $206.00 - there's nothing like a bargain and helping a worthy cause at the same time!

Eggs and Cookies!

Yes - that's the adult group hanging out!  Everyone is smiling because the kids are all getting old enough to take care of themselves and entertain themselves - and that's great news!!

Coloring Easter eggs was up next - once again we had the regular dye and the colored shaving cream!

Don't you just want to reach in the picture and eat some of that beautiful shaving cream and pretend it's whip cream?

One of the downfalls of using coloring on the shaving cream is the stain it makes on your hands for a while - Jill's went away pretty fast as she was in the kitchen a LOT but Aleah's stayed this color till the next day!

Next it was time to decorate the Easter cookies - Jessi mixed up purple, aqua and orange frosting and my the cookies turned out pretty!

Rayna had fun hiding the eggs out in the back yard - Kylan even climbed the tree to get one!

Does Kenzie EVER take a bad picture?   NOT!!!

And here's the clan, minus Rayna - I'm not sure where she was but I missed her in this picture!

We had our Easter meal late afternoon and stuffed ourselves with ham, hash brown casserole, deviled eggs, crunchy casserole, croissants, summer punch and pistachio dessert - it was all excellent - and exciting that we had an oven to cook it in!!

The Keppys and Smiths headed back home that evening and Jill and I collapsed!!  But not for long as Easter morning arrived and it was time to head to church!  Jill made cinnamon rolls to look like a bunny but I couldn't even snap the picture before Parker grabbed one of the ears!!

After the neighbor snapped a couple of pictures, we headed to church for a great Easter service!!

Another wonderful Easter weekend spend with family - always a great time!!  Thanks Jill and Robby for hosting!

Saturday Easter Celebration!

Check out the little girls with their matching dresses, headbands and bunnies - yes they were CUTE!!

But I must write about the NEWS that Robby told me when I got up Saturday morning - HE HAD FIXED THE STOVE!!!  I was SO impressed!  After reading and re-reading internet blogs and comments online about this particular stove, Robby discovered the problem - Jill had done the self cleaning on the oven and as we all know, stoves get VERY HOT when that is done!!  (in fact, one comment was Do Not Clean Your Oven Before An Event!!!! - good to know!!)  There is a layer of an adhesive tape over the sensors and it was all bubbled up which wasn't letting the sensors work properly - Robby took it off, straightened it out and put it back on and presto - it worked again!!

One quick picture before heading to the celebration at Jill's church!

The church had a fun program for the kids which kept all of us entertained and then it was out to the egg hunt!  Jill took Parker to his age group and Jessi and I took the little girls while Gary went with Evan!  It was a mad dash for the eggs!!

As you can see, they didn't get very many eggs - ha ha!!

It was a gorgeous day out - sunny most of the time and perfect weather for Easter weekend!

And then it was time to head back to Jill's to meet up with the Smiths and color some eggs!!

Pre-Easter

 Smiling grand kids - that's what I love to see!!  It was punch making time at Jill's house on Friday evening - after a LONG trip up to Ft. Collins (what did we expect on Easter weekend on a Friday?) we finally made it there!  Aleah asked me first thing if her and Kenzie would be getting matching dresses to wear (since that's what I gave them last year) and I asked her if she would be disappointed if that's not what she got - she replied she wouldn't be but of course I was all prepared!!

Glenn kept the kids entertained with the "horsey rides" on his lap while Jill and I got organized for the next day!  This year we decided to celebrate all together on Saturday which actually worked out really well!  The Keppys and Smiths could come up for the day and then be able to go to their own churches on Sunday morning and Glenn and I would spend a couple of nights!

 About 9:00 pm we finally were ready to boil the 8 dozen eggs to be colored and for the devilled eggs - I attempted to turn on Jill's stove to start 3 large pans of eggs to cook but she has a push button stove and nothing would work!  So boy were we surprised when she tried to turn it on and it did the same thing - nothing - just F-1 kept flashing on the screen!!  No range - no oven - even though we had just cooked the pizza a couple hours earlier...........

Robby pulled the stove out (that's always interesting to see what's behind the stove!!) and pulled the circuit board off, determining it was probably fried - oh dear - how were we going to boil 8 dozen eggs that night and cook 2 hams and potatoes and rolls the next day?

Thank God for nice neighbors!!  Jill called up her neighbor and asked if we could haul the eggs over there and cook them and of course she said yes!!  I'm sure we looked cute carrying pots of water and eggs across the street in our sweat pants and shirts (all ready to lounge around!!)!!  We did multi task though as we brought all the plastic eggs over and stuffed them with candy and money while we waited for the eggs to cook - and then it was back over to Jill's house to cool them down and get them in the refrigerator!!

By that time we were tired..................but of course I had my second wind by then and had a hard time getting to sleep - especially since we sleep in the basement and I could hear Robby working on the stove - back and forth to the computer and then scraping and thumping.............but it was all worth it when Robby told me the news in the morning!  To be cont'd...............

A Saturday Work Day

Looks like work, doesn't it?  But Glenn is never one to shy away from doing anything, especially if it's for the grandkids!

One of our clients built a house and stayed in this travel trailer while he worked on the house - his wife and son from Pueblo would join him on weekends - so by the time the house was finished, HE was finished with the trailer and just wanted it out of there!  So Glenn paid him $10.00 for the trailer and hauled it to our place, knowing that Jill's and Jessi's would love to use it for camping instead of tenting!  And it would not only keep the grandkids warmer, but a little bit safer when we wilderness camp!

Glenn knew the trailer needed new cables to hoist it up - and gosh that turned into hours and hours of work for him - first trying to get it jacked up a little bit so he could get to the cables and secondly, trying to prop it up with poles to hold it - naturally he did this on one of the windiest days of the year and it did fall down.............

Gary offered to come down last Saturday and help Glenn but Glenn told him not to come as they were just down the weekend before and he really thought he could do it all himself!  But by the end of the week when he had spent many hours after work just working on the trailer, Robby called and said he was coming down to help - and that was a good thing as I don't think Glenn knew how long all of it was going to take!!

Robby and Glenn started on it bright and early Saturday morning and basically (except for going to town to have the tires mounted) worked on it till about 6:30 that evening!  The trailer is HUGE - sleeps 8 and is not in bad shape at all considering its age! 

After the guys left to head to town on the tires (see below picture where they diligently tried to get those new tires pumped up that I had picked up the day before) I decided that the trailer was so filthy that I needed to clean it up so the kids wouldn't have so much to do before they took it camping!!  An hour and a half later after using degreaser and 4 buckets of sudsy water, it was FINALLY clean - and it smelled so nice!!

So was I relaxing all morning while the guys worked?  Absolutely not - I not only got the laundry done but washed the windows inside and out in the loft and on the main level!  Always a nice job to get done after winter!!  And then it was time to relax with a wonderful huge cup of my favorite coffee!!

A Visit From The Keppys

Check out my helpers!!  Because I didn't get my 2 salads made before Gary, Jessi, Evan and Kenzie arrived on Friday afternoon, I made a cooking class out of it for the little ones!  I emailed Jessi the day before and told her to bring their aprons and hats and we would have fun in the kitchen - and we DID!!

You can see we had the fireplace going on Friday evening - due to the 10" of snow we'd gotten the day before, we weren't even sure if they could make it up the driveway but the sun came out on Friday and melted a lot of it off!  Hooray for April weather where you can get a foot of snow one day and it melts by the next day!

Dessert on Friday night after playing games was ice cream sundaes - the kids were thrilled - mostly Kenzie!!

Saturday Gary, Glenn and the kids headed out to dig for gems over at Joleen's property!  She lives over by Crystal Peak so there's always that chance there are treasures to be found by digging!!  Even though it was cool out, they all had a great time - we sent them with a pack of fruit snacks for the kids and a piece of banana bread for all of them, expecting them to be home for lunch - NOT!!!  They didn't arrive home till 3:00 and of course were starved - but they were having such a great time that I guess the hunger pains didn't matter!

Jessi and I went to Cripple Creek for tea!!  I had made reservations so our table was all ready and once again, it was a wonderful time!!  There's just something special about sitting there with your daughter or a friend, drinking tea, eating tiny bites of sandwiches and talking the time away!!

I enjoyed the Passion Fruit Tea while Jessi chose the Chai Green Tea and it was wonderful!!  A new item for our tea were slices of swiss cheese with purple grapes - delicious!

And of course the dessert is always great!  We chose the cranberry white chocolate scones with fresh whip cream which comes with 4 different kinds of mini torts.  It was a special time!

Watching FROZEN was on the agenda for the afternoon and after grilling hamburgers for dinner, we 4 adults played games till bedtime!

Sunday the boys all chose to once again go digging in the dirt - that was fine with Jessi and I and we relaxed the day away with Kenzie.................. I think both of us finished reading our books!

Even though the weather wasn't fantastic, we all enjoyed the weekend and made plans for the summer camping trip which will be right around the corner!

One Of The Perks!

Yes when you have a husband that is a granite installer, you just have to say the word and you get new granite...............well, maybe it wasn't QUITE that easy!!

When Glenn originally installed the main level bathroom, he just used a piece of black 2cm granite which was fine BUT he installed the sink backwards (ha ha).  It worked just fine but that little hole towards the top, well it was right below the faucets instead of the back side.  And because Glenn uses this vanity for his tooth brushing and shaving (our master bath is tiny tiny!!), there was always water spots and whiskers all over the black which was clearly much more visible than a patterned granite!

Since we'll be out of the business soon, we both decided that we would replace this one and the master bath one.  The above pictures are both of our main level bathroom and I LOVE this color!  It's also the normal thickness which is 3 cm - awesome job Glenn!

3 Months And COUNTING..............

The countdown has started since we're 3 months away from retirement!  I haven't started marking big red x's across the dates yet but that doesn't mean I won't start!!


Work has not been fun the past month - the employee situation is an on-going problem and the stress it creates for both Glenn and I makes life tough!  It seems like we just get a good crew trained and they move on.............and then it's advertise and rehire and go through the process again!  Trained fabricators are very hard to come by so we end up training guys from scratch which is about a 3 month process.  So when they quit after 4 months or we have to let them go because they refuse to show up, it's tough!


We have 2 extremely dedicated and trained guys who have been with us for over 2 years and it's a great feeling to know they WILL show up everyday!  Now if we can just get a couple more on board like that, it would be great!


Our buyer for the business will start training next week - he'll be in and out for the next month due to his job but then will be here pretty much full time during May and June.  There's no doubt that Glenn and I will both have HUGE smiles on our faces when we hand the keys over on July 1st!


Until then, we'll keep plugging away and doing what we need to do!