Skye Diving

As you may already know, for Skye's sixteenth birthday we got him the gift of SCUBA certification. A little unusual, maybe, but we like those gifts that keep on giving. And Skye is not your average sixteen year old. After his class time and pool time, he had to do four open water dives. To accomplish this Skye and I took a weekend drive to Wendover NV.

It was a dusty ride to Warm Lake.

I think the hardest part of diving though, is getting all the gear on.

I think the rest was easy peasy for Skye.

If you know anything about Skye, (other than the total obviousness of his coolness) it's that he's smart. When he gets interested in something he studies it until he has a very good understanding of it. Then you can ask him anything about it and he can have an intelligent in-depth conversation about it. When he learns something he really learns it.

Out of all the students Skye spent the most time in the water.

The last day he got in a 5th dive with the instructor after everyone else left.

He is on his way to getting elevation certified and dry suit certified.

We were the last ones to leave the lake everyday! Not the instructor, Skye and I!  He loved being in the water. Skye brought his snorkle gear and continued exploring the lake all to himself. I think living near the ocean is in his future. I hope SCUBA will be a life long interest for him. Maybe he can become an instructor and certify the rest of his family?

He found some Talapia.

He found a new passion.

SCUBA

Water Works

It's amazing what a little water will do.

Even the desert can bloom.

Arron and Olive trenched in our sprinkler system.

Devin helped install a new pump.
Arron had to run power from the house out to the pump site.
This will also be helpful when we build our shop.

After replacing the entire main line down the lane,
we have a water system!
Grass was planted just early enough that we won't
be dealing with mud all winter.

But that's not all...

Skye purchased a sail boat over the summer so...

We dug in a pond!

We get a lot of run-off during the summer months

when the irrigation water is on.

Now instead of marsh at the bottom of the hill we

can divert all the water to this pond.

Next summer we can focus on plantings,

sculpting the bank, and overall beautification.

Maybe even put in a walking bridge going across the water.

Still Going Strong After One Year!

I know it''s been awhile since I've posted anything

on the Villa's progress.

 We have been as busy as ever though.

Lately we have focused on the first floor.

I hate to call it a basement because it has outdoor access

 from three sides, hardly a basement.

I wouldn't even call it a daylight basement,

 so it is dubbed, 'the first floor'.

This part of the house used to be a detached garage in the 30's. Then, it was later moved to the main house and an upstairs was added on top of it. It has always been used as a garage, until now. Here we are gutting out all the shelving and cabinets. Insulation and support beams go next.

This corner of the first floor will be Skye's bedroom.

 The window on the right has been replaced with a much bigger window, set higher on the wall.

 The window to the left has been completely removed.

 There will be a 15X15 addition in it's place. The addition will be Laiken's room.

We cut out a door at the end of the hallway so we can have access to the back yard from the first floor.

 This will also be great for access to the bathroom. In this picture you can see some of the new framing.

The new doorway into Skye's room.

The "prison bathroom" is twice as large now.

 When it's all finished we might have to find a new name for it.

Arron and Skye are building me a laundry cabinet.

 It is raised so I don't have to bend to transfer clothes.

Arron will build drawers underneath,

and a shelf above for storage.

Here is the doorway to the back yard

after the cement guys cut through the foundation.

The door on the right will be Laiken's bedroom

 door when the addition is finished.

I think Arron is pretty pleased with the way the first floor is turning out!

This room with all the tools, will be a bonus room/theatre room.

You can see in the room behind it Skye's new bedroom window.

While we have been working on the first floor

there are many other jobs being worked on.

Most exciting is our stucco crew

has all the paper, foam, and wire up.

 We have had to wait for inspection for several days,

 but they should be able to mud after the weekend,

 then comes the stucco and rock!

We also have a good friend working on the plumbing,

A contractor working on electrical and an

 HVAC crew is putting in our new geothermal

heating and cooling system.

Frugal 'Eggsploits'

Next time someone asks me if I recycle I'm saying Yes.
 I may not fuss with the blue bin and recycle cans or newspaper, but I am recycling a house.

Here is our newly built chicken coop, all made out of reusable materials from the Villa.

First we had to pull nails from the old lumber.

It took a long time to pull all those nails.

After we got the foundation built and level, it went together pretty quickly.

We had just enough metal roofing left over to cover the roof with a nice overhang.

These ole' birds are gonna be sittin' pretty this winter in their fully insulated pad.

I loved the idea of using this screen door. It will provide sunlight and ventilation.

The six squares next to the door are the nesting boxes.

Arron engineered a cool folding door so I can access them from the outside.

Inside view of the nesting boxes.
 (This is where all the magic happens)

 These chicks have it pretty sweet, we even installed
wall-to-wall paneling.

This little door leads to their future run.

Stay tuned for the finishing touches, and moving day!

Weekend Warriors

It has been quite a busy summer so far.

Arron has had to travel a lot for work and
progress at the Villa has slowed.

Yesterday morning he headed out with Skye to get an early start on removing bad wood from the flooring. Laiken and I went with Suzanne to the Lavender festival.

I always look forward to the lavender festival. It's so inspiring,

I can't wait to plant my lavender garden.

I will plant several varieties.

Some for their fragrance, some for cooking, and some just for their beauty.

We had a nice lunch in the shade. We sampled the lavender lemonade and butter cookies!

Its fun to see the different vendors and ask the gardener questions.

Us girls had a very nice, relaxing morning.

This was the state of the Villa when I arrived.

Arron had pulled all the old wood off the foundation, and jacked the house up so he could replace all the damaged lumber with pressure treated wood.

Yuck! Over the years all the moisture from the cement foundation has been wicking up into the flooring.

There's a lot of dry rot and we have to replace all the wood around the foundation and most of the floor  joists. We have also noticed some burrowing in the wood.

Can't wait to find out what bug has been eating our floors!

This is how I found the boys when I arrived. It was 95 degrees out and they were both exhausted.

Arron works so hard, I know he is doing everything he can to get the Villa livable for us. As excited as we all are to be living there, it is nice that we aren't in any rush.

4th of July Weekend

I Love the 4th. It may actually be my favorite celebration!

I mean, come on... when else do you get beautiful weather,
great food, parades and fireworks?

 It was hard to narrow down my photos for this post so
 I hope you enjoy all of them.

Arron and I started the morning off by riding our motorbikes to Melba for the parade.
The kids wanted to sleep in this year so we just took the dog.

Small towns are the best when it comes to patriotism.

I admit it's a little bit redneck,
but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Okay, I have to stop the 'parade of photos' for a second to say...

 when I saw this group of Mexicans on these beautiful,
well trained horses,

proudly holding the American flag, I teared up.

We fell in right  behind the last of the parade participants.
I felt like I was in the parade.

 Olive was such a good girl, following at Arron's side.
She didn't even mind when people asked,

"can I pet your Labradoodle?" 

I could see Arron just cringe.
(why would anyone mix a lab with a poodle?)

We saw flags everywhere. It was wonderful.

After the parade everyone just left their chairs
and went to the tractor pull.

No need to worry about them,
 they will still be there when you get back.

At the tractor pull I bought 6 raffle tickets for a new lawn tractor.

Keep your fingers crossed for me!

I am so impressed with how this small town can put on such an amazing celebration.

I just can't say enough, they even moved all the fun to Saturday so families could spend Sunday

the way it was intended to be spent.

We came back later Saturday night for the fireworks display.

Arron's a pro at finding the best parking spot for an easy exit.
While he parked we found a sweet spot for viewing the show.
We actually got showered with debris from the explosions.
It was awesome!

I love when they play "Great Balls of Fire" they light off these huge fire bombs.
You can feel the heat from them and they actually mushroom cloud above your heads.

 It's not the 4th of July without great food.
Thanks to Don and Suzanne we had a delicious BBQ.
Grilled chicken, Grandma Glady's Lemon Jello Salad,
(I will post the recipe soon)
Lemonade, Watermelon and all the fixin's.
After we ate we went to Caleb's for dessert
and a barn raisin' (well a shed)
Amy and I didn't know we were both making berry trifles.
Great minds think alike I guess.
They were very refreshing and a perfect finish to our meal.

Skye played with the cousins and Lad rode Amy's Harley.
She's a lucky, lucky girl. We're all a bit jealous.

I am so fortunate to live in this country.
 America is still the bees knees.
People go to great lengths to live here.
Others go to even greater lengths to keep us free.

God Bless America