Moving Day!

The rooster is going with us! Not quite sure how to pack him, but it will definitely remind me of Silveira. He was a gift from teachers and I will find a special spot for him. I love that he is made out of recycled parts.

The movers arrived at 8:30 this morning and worked until 6:00. It was 102 degrees today and we all drank water all day long. It was brutal! Marco, our driver, is going to Oakland tomorrow to pick up a load for Phoenix. He says he can deliver our stuff on September 1st which is excellent. We are leaving on the 30th and taking two days to drive to Payson. (I don't want to drive for 14 hours in one day.)

We have tranquilizers for the cats and "family tracker" on our iPhones so that we know where the other person is at all times.

Estate sale is this weekend. Those folks come tomorrow to start the set up.

We are enjoying the adventure so far!

I am so sick of packing. We have too much stuff! I guess everyone says that. It's hard to know where furniture will go once the new house is built so if there is any doubt.....I am taking it!

I plan to do a lot of furniture refinishing and painting this year coming up.....I'll have the time!

Meeting with Architect

While we were in Payson looking for a rental house we also met with Bill, our architect and Matt, our builder. They really like each other which is great. Matt's dad, Mark, also came along. He is "retired" but very interested in our project. We will take all the expertise we can get!

Every time we look at the plans we make changes. We need to stop as we hope to have them finalized in two weeks. We want to "break ground" in September.

Green Valley Park

This is a little park with a lake on the way to our building site. You can fish for bass, sunfish, trout and carp. You can also take fly fishing classes......we're signing up!

There is an elementary school very close to this little lake.....what a beautiful setting for a school.

Rental House

This is our rental house. It's very nice and has lots of storage areas for all the boxes that we are NOT going to unpack. I couldn't believe it but it has a lawn in the backyard. (There aren't very many lawns around here as conserving water is a real issue.) It's about a 10 minute drive to our building site. Building our house should take 8-12 months. We move into this house on August 31st.

The backyard even comes with a cat pen. The current renters told us not to let our cats out at night as there are coyotes. Our cats are going to have to alter their habits as they like to sleep in the daytime and roam around outside at night.

Building Site Photos

This is a photo of our lot on West Norris Court. As you can see we have a lot of granite! We think it is beautiful and the south facing windows in the great room look out on the "rock pile." The mountains in the distance are covered with pine trees. A farm full of llamas lives next door. I wonder if llama poop will make good compost for my future garden?

We have little cactus plants everywhere. I don't want the excavators to run over them. Should I try and transplant them?

We cleared the lot of most of the dead wood. We have small piles of firewood all over the place. Maybe I can hire a few high school students to put it in one big pile once we have a driveway and garage.