Welcome to the Projects

Quite a few years ago a neighbor saw me working in the yard and yelled over, "Hey Bailey, welcome to the projects." At first I thought he was talking about the bouroughs of New York City and I couldn't quite figure out what New York City had to do with little ol' Alpine, Utah. I may not be the quickest car on the track, but I think I've finally finished the race.

This summer we have been busy on several yard and home improvements. First there was the iron fence PROJECT and the required painting PROJECT. This set off the driveway PROJECT, which in turn created a situation that made the sprinkler PROJECT necessary. The sprinkler PROJECT set off

the east side stairs PROJECT. All the sprinkler lines had to be re-routed; consiquently the stairs had to be ripped up to set the new sprinkler lines. The Alpine winds forced the roof PROJECT because I had 15 year shingles on an 18 year old roof.

Ashley is anxious to have the basement renovation PROJECT finished, and as you can see, Jo is working on the weed PROJECT by the hedge on the west side of the house (I have never seen this many weeds in our yard ever.) Of course Ashley is supervising Jo. Isn't that just how it works? I supervise the contractors, Jo supervises me, and the kids supervise the parents. Wouldn't you know? Don't you think Ash would look good in an orange highway vest?

The fix-the-dryer PROJECT is still waiting to be done along with the the laundry room renovation PROJECT and even the daily laundry PROJECT is taking a break.

I have been working on my Alpine Prints website PROJECT and last Saturday was the Stingham reunion. I won't call that a PROJECT, because it was family deal. (Check out the pictures here.) And now both Jo and I have the Temple & Family History council leadership PROJECT in our BYU stake.

So, just like the old neighbor said, "Welcome to the PROJECTS!"; right here in the bouroughs of Alpine.

It's about time

After 18 years it's about time that some updates were done to the house. It has been a busy summer. I've replaced half the sprinkler heads on the place to new and improved ones so that the grass will grow greener. And this time it's not like what mom says about greener grass on the other side of the fence. It's water that is making the grass greener...not the other stuff.

Last week was a BIG week. Got the last of the iron fence put in and painted. It is a very delicate shade of black.



Also, since everyone is deciding to move back in, we thought we needed to keep the kids off the street...so we are adding an extension to the driveway. It's only about 18 years too late; but who's counting. Certainly not me.

Pouring the mud...Glad that wasn't my job

Last, and certainly not least after all the huffing and puffing of the big bad wolf; half the shingles were gone on the house so we thought we'd get ready for winter and get some new ones. These are fancy architectural shingles that are supposed to last for 50 years. I expect that I won't be around to collect on that warranty as I'd be beyond the century mark by that point. I just didn't want to have to worry about them ever again. If I do, I will be really ticked.

Supervising the roofing crew!

Jo supervising me!

Raspberries are on and it appears to be a good crop this year. BTW, that is the last project for the summer; redoing the landscape around the raspberries and the stairs on that side of the house.

Happy Projects to you too!

All Good Things...

It is the last day of the ROAD TRIP...all good things must come to an end. We are homeward bound.

Like we aluded to yesterday we had a French breakfast. The Hanlon B&B, where we stayed, is run by Suella Hanlon. Her parents had owned the house since the mid 1900's and she just recently made it into a B&B. It was a lot of fun visiting with her. She had been a nun for about 7 years, and I suspect that experience pretty much colored the rest of her life to this point anyway. She suggested that we visit the Scottsbluff National Park...so being the easily influenced people that we are, we did.

The bluff was named after Hiram Scott. Get this. The fur party he was with got attacked by Indians and Hiram was wounded. So after a bit, when food & water were running low, the rest of the guys pulled a Darwin. Survival of the fittest and so they left him to die. He crawled to the base of the bluff and you guessed it. He died. They found him the next year, or rather his skeleton and decided that the bluff should be called Scotts Bluff forevermore. I guess it was a way to appease their conscience. "Hey, we left this guy to die and he did, so let's name the bluff after him to make us feel better about leaving him behind." That's life. Things haven't changed much in 200 years.







Rather than taking the fast way home (translate smart way); dad decided we needed to follow the Oregon, Mormon trail autoroute. After a while you begin to feel like the Willey & Martin Handcart company. Opps-Big Mistake, can we have a do-over. We thought we were taking the scenic route home. Jo reminded me that there are no scenic routes through Wyoming. (The welcome to Wyoming should have been a BIG clue...notice the scenic backdrop). Even the "new" roads have wagon ruts in them.

Jo drove about a 100 miles through Wyoming. You know it's the funniest thing. When I drive she gets nervous. When she drives I get really nervous. Here we are outside Casper.






One more thing. The animals in Wyoming. Big Duh. First a swallow divebombs the car. Well, you know, when you divebomb something you also have to get out of the way... in a hurry. He didn't. Don't know if you call it road-kill or air-kill.




Also, how hard is it to cross a two lane road with cars coming about every 10 minutes or so. Do the antelope in Wyoming just set up a picnic in the middle of road? Or do they play chicken? (maybe they are playing antelope). Anyway, there were road-kill antelope on the side of the road. I still can't figure out how they manage that one. Maybe there is something in the water. Hmmm, maybe it's just Wyoming.





Got into Utah about 8pm. Almost home. Jo and I decided that Katie could go to college. That Matt doesn't have to stay at home forever and be a mama's boy and it's okay if Brody just comes only for a visit. Mom will survive with just Dad hanging around. That's a relief (for me anyway). I didn't want to have to pack my bags and start another ROAD TRIP next week.


One more thing...Before we started the trip I calculated we would go 1970 miles. We went exactly 1963.1. Don't you dare say I can't plan a trip. After 4 days, several missed turns, historical sites, etc., I only missed by 6.9 miles. Google is good!


Where too next? We think Nauvoo would be interesting. Only next time, we are going to take more time. We want to be less acquinted with the road and more acquainted with where we visit.