Cat Update: (We Still Have Them)

 Meanwhile, the cats are having a very busy summer. (Shhhh!)

Week in Review

On Saturday morning, Stace and I were up and out early to get to the annual Aerospace Games at a community college in El Segundo, not far from the beaches of Torrance.

Stace played a ton of pickleball, and had a lot of fun. We enjoyed our free lunch and snacks, and hanging out with Stace's coworkers and regular pickleball cohorts.

We needed to find a place to watch the England-Netherlands game, and I found a place online that sounded good. Little did I know, it was apparently the most popular brewery in the South Bay. We had to park really far away, and the walk in the summer heat, after being out all day, did me in! I got a headache that only went away the next morning.

We sat outside under an umbrella and leaned in to watch a TV inside. Thankfully, England won!

We celebrated the following day with a roast dinner, with roast potatoes.

On Tuesday, our friends who moved to Texas from SClarita 10 years ago were in town to visit, and we got to have dinner with them at a sushi place. It was great catching up! 

We watched Wednesday's England-Argentina semifinal at my parents' house. 

It was going so well...

...until it wasn't. And the young guy there to work on the air conditioner was Argentinian, and very, very happy. He said he was a former pro footballer who got hurt, so he knew the game well.
Well, maybe football can come home in 2030?!?

On Friday, Vi and I got the heck outta town, and went to Rincon beach. It was great to get some Vitamin Sea.

There was a LOT of tar on the beach, more than normal, so we didn't take a long walk. 

We did see dolphins though!

Independence, World Cup and Bathroom Work

 

Stace and I tried to make it to the Fourth of July Pancake Breakfast, but didn't leave enough time to find parking, so close to the parade route. So, we went back home, got our bikes, and rode out to watch the parade. The white pickup truck here carried a SClarita WWII veteran. As these special men are few and far between now, I had to get a photo.

After the parade, my parents came over, and we primed the girls' bathroom.

Later, we watched fireworks, as per tradition.

We have a gopher! We saw our tomato plant listing, and then wiggling. By the next morning, it was pulled down! 

We even saw the gopher, poking up through one of his holes. Oh dear - this isn't good for our garden. Time for deterrents, and, maybe, traps.

Seb has had a few vet appointments lately, including an ultrasound at a specialist in the San Fernando Valley. He's been diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease - better than cancer! - and will start steroids, along with special food and probiotics, to hopefully help him feel better.

 

We all enjoyed England's defeat of Mexico in the World Cup - Stace of course lives and breathes WC football, but this time, the girls got very involved, as well. (Stace was, obviously, thrilled.)

The workers have started in on the bathrooms. The drywall guy has been over, and he's finished the hall bath enough so that we can prime and paint, and get the vanity moved back in. 

Here, Stace is putting up the backerboard. We've decided to have the contractor do most of our bathroom, while Stace will tile the girls'. Insurance is paying for much of the damage, but this will allow us to afford higher end materials in our bathroom.

We have a hot-mopped shower pan! This was a very smelly process. You can see, this is the point there it was holding water for 24 hours, to prove it is watertight. 

Tony the Tile Guy put up layers of cement and wire to form a long-lasting watertight shower wall.

Color! Back in the hall bath, we went a shade darker with the green than we'd had before.

The first tile, on the wall! We've chosen a large format two-feet-by-four-feet tile, for a clean look with fewer grout lines.

It's great having all this progress take place, though it means noise and early mornings with workers in the house. 

Back Home - Decisions, decisions

Here is the state of our bathroom, on Monday. Shower and drywall gone, floor gone, and Stace dismantling part of the closet so we can have a bigger vanity and a floor-to-ceiling cupboard.

We have one toilet to use, and the kitchen sink for brushing teeth and washing up.

Showering is happening elsewhere, clearly. Stace can shower at work, while we girls are using Grandma and Grandpa's house, Mel and Nick's, the neighbor's, and friends' houses. 

I'm spending my days shopping! Lowes, Home Depot, specialty tile and vanity stores, multiple trips in a day. So many decisions to make! And because we want to get rebuilt as soon as possible, the decisions need to be made, yesterday. 

We've found a wonderful contractor, with a tile store, and the lady there has been very helpful as we consider our options.

A few doors down from the tile store we're using is Bodhi Leaf Tea and Coffee. Once I chose and paid for everything, I rewarded myself.

In other news, the weather this week has been lovely, so the girls did a horseriding lesson.

 

Treat time! Violet is giving the horse an apple.

Cora and Violet cat-sat for Mel and Nick while they were back East, and had a sister date at a pottery painting place, plus ramen! They spent the night, had fun with Poppy and Gibby, and got to shower. Such a bonus.

Great Basin Day 6

 After our Ely train ride, we stayed at nearby Cave Lake State Park, another of Nevada's amazing state campgrounds. We chose this one because it offered a trout fishing lake, which Vi and Stace headed out to enjoy Friday morning.

After over an hour of casting, Stace went up to move the RV, because we were supposed to be out of our campsite by 11 a.m. 

Of course, he wasn't gone five minutes before Violet caught her first fish!

Thankfully, when he returned with the RV, she actually caught another one. They were both fairly small, and we had no plans to keep them, so Vi was using unbarbed hooks, and threw them back in. 

We drove back into Ely and got coffee at an adorable independent coffee-and-flower shop. We then went to the town's Renaissance History Village, a collection of cottages from the early 1900s. Each home was made to represent one of the many nationalities of miners who came to Ely to work in the copper mines.

scary wind drive

We then started our drive south, back to Las Vegas. It was very windy, which was a bit scary in a high-profile RV. Stace had to concentrate very hard while driving.

The scenery was beautiful, and we made a short detour to try to see petroglyphs in the desert. Unfortunately, the road was suited to our RV, so we had to turn around. 

We got back to Vegas, then to Henderson, where we picked up the Mazda. We stayed the night at an urban homestead - a large property where the owners are growing lots of fruits and vegetables and have animals like goats, hens and ducks. 

On Saturday morning, we cleaned out the RV and returned it to the rental place. We then stopped for breakfast at a Cracker Barrel, and shopped at the huge Bass Pro Shops next door.

About halfway home, we stopped in Barstow for gas and coffee at another cute local shop. It was owned by a Hispanic family, so of course they had the World Cup on. Stace enjoyed a soccer break - it was tough being away from World Cup action for a whole week!

Then, we were home - home to a Cora not feeling well, two torn up bathrooms, Seb having toilet issues, and a mess of a garden. Let the real work begin.

 

Great Basin Day 5

On our way out of the park, we made sure to get our classic photo in front of the sign.

This was another little photo spot with informative plaques (and cool metal artwork along the top beam).

We then drove along the so-called "Loneliest Road in America," Highway 50, from Baker to Ely. Violet enjoyed the scenery; you can buckle up at the table while on the traveling. 

Ely's historic core was classic Western smalltown. We enjoyed walking around, and then went to the old Ely train depot, from 1906.

This was one of Stace's highlights of the trip. We got a very personalized tour of the restoration shed, where workers bring old engines back to working order.

Violet and I enjoyed meeting the shop cats - this was R2D3, for RailRoad Dirt 3. A famous shop cat was named Dirt, and his protege was named Dirt Junior, so this one is Dirt 3.

Numerous historic engines - Stace was a happy guy.

Here, he's showing Violet the workings of the giant lathe.

Later, we headed out on our Sunset, Stars and Champagne ride across the Nevada landscape. This region is known for its dark night skies.

A lovely and memorable evening!