Soaring the beautiful landscape of Phoenix, AZ

What a treat to wake up to this morning. We awoke early to the beautiful presence of a couple of hot air balloons soaring high above the desert floor right in our backyard. It was a sight to see.
As everyone who knows us & has been to our previous house in Southern MN, the back yard was in pretty good shape, however a neighbor who believes that weed control is pouring multiple bags of wood chips over the infested over growth of weeds left a sore taste in our mouth for many years.
For DW & DH to awake to such a magnificent sight as you see here, it helps ease our transition into the Northwest valley of AZ. We know why we are here and this is an example of why we feel the way we do. Here are a few more photos. We hope in the future we see more balloons in the sky soaring in the hands of mother nature. What an absolute change from what we were used to.

DH has been doing some contract work for his previous employer & he took a break this afternoon to check the thermometer outside and snapped a quick photo.

Yep it says 111.7 Degrees. DH & DW have tried to explain to many people the difference of how the heat feels here in AZ. Don't get us wrong, it's HOT! But we and the dogs have adjusted already & the only thing we notice that could constitute difficult would be entering a vehicle after it's sat for about 40 minutes or longer. A few minutes of air conditioning and all is well. Oh how we will think of you all in the winter time!!
(Note: Click on ANY of the photos on our blog for a larger image.)

Local news reports Natives invading houses of relocated Minnesotans

Well it's 9:45 p.m. local time here & we were just out in the backyard soaking up the warmth of the day when we heard a ruckus with the dogs. We stopped them immediately to see what was going on and we were amazed at what had strolled onto our patio to check out our pad. Phoebe, being the Mean, Vicious, Guard dog she is, didn't let us down. She managed to de-tail a Gecko that was meandering across our patio and enjoying our spacious back yard. We felt so sorry for
"Frenchie", the border crossing Gecko. He looked so sad.

I guess if I was strolling along, minding my own business, and someone chewed my tail off I wouldn't look so happy either!
We managed to get "Frenchie" to higher ground via a medic transport chopper "sheet of paper" and he looked VERY relieved! DH & DW were stunned to look immediately after the incident to see the tail that had separated from "Frenchie", squirming unattached by itself on the patio and it kind of reminded us of a chicken with it's head cut off.

We've never seen that personally, but have heard about it since we were youngsters. We wish "Frenchie" a full recovery & we will check on him in the A.M to make sure that he was able to check out of the Jarvi Memorial Hospital. :-)

Finally we're connected with the real world again!

Well folks, it's been one heck of an adventure. We are here to tell you that we made it with a few hick-ups but we survived! We would like to thank everyone back in Minnie-soda for all of your gracious help in packing, loading the trailer and clearing out the house. Without your help, we would not be here, we'd still be in MN wondering how the heck do we pull this off! Oh and a SPECIAL thank you to Dale who decided he would check the brakes on the trailer and pulled a hub off only to find the brake pads fell to the ground. DH went and bought all new brake pads for all 4 tires & Dale did a complete brake job for us on Sunday morning. Thank you ALL of you who helped us. Let me start by saying that the first day of our travels went pretty well. DH had a heck of a time traversing the trailer down the road. Every big Semi that passed created a vacuum that had him startled every time one would pass. Let's just say that this is an understatement about the roads from Minnesota to Arizona. They are HORRIBLE!!!!!! The last time we stopped on our first day of travels was to get fuel in Olathe, KS. DH noticed as he was making a turn that a tire looked like it was pretty low in his drivers side mirror. Upon further inspection we noticed a nail sticking out of the sidewall. We were pulled into a gas pump stall when Sheri got the attention of a tow-truck driver in the next bay who was fueling & she worked her magic to get him to at least inflate the tire so we could pull over on a flat spot to change the tire. Sherri got her way and the tire was inflated allowing us to move the trailer to a spot where we could actually change the tire. Sheri said she came along as the pit crew & she wasn't lying. She yanked out the jack & had the trailer off the ground in no time. We managed to change the tire and made the decision to spend the night in KS. The next morning DH & DW brought the tire to a repair shop to have a plug installed for $14.00. It was repaired and we returned to the hotel to find Sheri had removed the spare tire off the trailer and was waiting patiently for the repaired tire. Traveling earlier on Monday the GMC Envoy had a service engine light come on but all the gauges were reading normal and the transmission was working as it should. We all decided we should run it to the local GMC dealer and at least have them check out the error code.

The engine fan was stuck on low. The shop technician said if you're heading to the Kansas City Turnpike, you SHOULD replace it or you will definitely overheat. They told us it would take a few hours & cost us $880.00 (OUCH!) We had wandered out into the parking lot while the Envoy was in the repair stall & a sales person had greeted us and asked if we were looking? We explained our situation and had a nice chat with him for about 20 minutes.We found that this was a SMART decision. We shook his hand and headed back to the bay where the Envoy sat. We watched the salesperson we had just finished chatting with enter the bay and had a brief conversation with the technician & within minutes 2 technicians were working on the Envoy. In about 35 minutes the truck was fixed and put back together and we were on the road. They went far and above anything we had expected. We went back and picked up Sheri and we were on the road again and not looking back. The next two days of traveling went smoothly as far as vehicles go. DH however had rough roads for what seemed to be eternity. Just when he thought things were smoothing out, things got progressively worse. A few times you could hear him saying some expletives over the hand held walkie talkies we had purchased for communicating between the two vehicles. These proved to be life savers as we went through the big cities. DH would turn on the blinker for which lane he wanted and DW would pull out in the Envoy and block traffic for him. We got it down to a pretty good science. Here is a photo of one of the stops we made after some pretty tough roads.

We left on Monday morning and had hoped we would be in Phoenix by Wednesday afternoon. Due to the hick-up in the early evening on Monday we eventually made it to Holbrook, AZ Wednesday late evening and decided to spend the night there and finish our travels on Thursday morning. Here is us leaving Holbrook, AZ.

We made the final trek into Flagstaff and headed south to Phoenix. We thought again how wonderful it was that Dale had checked the trailer brakes because it is pretty much a 6% downgrade on the roads from Flagstaff to Phoenix. If Dale hadn't repaired the trailer brakes, who knows what would have happened. I know with the brakes working it didn't take long for the 11,350lbs in our trailer to get me motoring down the mountain. But all said and done we would never attempt this kind of trip again. We will hire someone to come pack, haul and unload for us. But we have lots of memories to look back upon with this endeavor. Thanks again Sheri for riding along and putting up with the dogs. I'm not elaborating on them because they traveled like troopers. At least that's what I heard. So we would like to show you how our new home looked after the trailer was unpacked. Our pit crew gal Sheri worked her Butt off for us & our local friend Tony arrived to help DH move the big stuff and in about 8 hours we had the whole trailer unloaded. "WOW" Did we tell you it's HOT here? Guess everyone wanted stuff out & in as fast as we could get it done. Lots of water was drank to complete the task, but for the most part it went without problems. Nothing was broken.

In the last few days while DW has been at work, DH has been trying to get things to a more normal state in the house. He has made some strides in making the house livable for all of us. It is monsoon season here in AZ right now & last night when the sun was going down there were some impressive storms that had formed earlier in the day & they looked so beautiful from our back yard last night.

DW loves her new job & DH has a meeting tomorrow to discuss doing some drawings for a rental company here in Phoenix who has connections to Barrett Jackson Automobile Auction Company. He will try to sell his talents tomorrow & he hopes to make a great impression with his talents & hopes to be working full time very soon. We have stored the trailer at a self storage company as we can't have it parked in front of our house. We are thinking that we'll probably want to sell it, but we aren't sure as of yet. Here is a photo showing it in storage. DH was relieved when he pulled away as to not have the wart "trailer" attached to his ass. Too funny!

Should we actually be blogging right now???? Good question!

Well here it is one week from the trip of a lifetime. I (DH) am going to post a long blog tonight. DW & DH are sitting here in our living room (DORM ROOM, COLLEGE STYLE, NO FURNITURE) deprived of sleep. Yesterday, we tore down our bed and anything larger than a box & decided that a couple of sleeping bags would work just fine for us on our hardwood floors. We have both decided that we will NEVER think that option again. Hardwood floors to sleep on as mature adults is NEVER an option anyone should consider. DW currently is going through another tub of photos she has collected over the years. She used to work for a photography place so she had doubles of every photo she had taken for 9+ years. She has made great progress in sorting out her photos as she has emptied yet another tub. Yesterday, DW's family arrived at our house around 10:00 A.M. They came from Pillager MN, Savage MN, & Owatonna MN. DW's Mother and Boyfriend (Mike) were here as well. Our friends Shari & Dale showed up also. Everyone stepped up to the plate to help & we basically emptied everything from our home in about 12 hours. The dogs are feeling the stress of the move because they are so confused. We both feel so sorry for them because we can't communicate what it is that's happening. Here is a photo of Phoebe sitting in Muncie's dog basket, she looks so sad!


The last few days have been very emotional for DW & DH! DW's family left late this afternoon & we've realized that this next week will tear us down emotionally! We are taking things in stride however, knowing that our friends and family will always be there for us. With all things happening, we are struggling with another aspect of things - Co-workers, friends, & neighbors. We know feelings, emotions, thoughts, memories, and so many things we can't describe makes our move so much harder for everyone. We do know that we, DW & DH, will succeed & push ourselves to better our lives as we have been taught from our parents. We love all of our friends and family members more than you know!!!! Below are some photo's showing what happened in the last few day's.


We will be posting more photo's of the house and trailer later in the week. DH & DW are exhausted and we are struggling with finding the energy to keep going. We have no doubts we will finish, but it's difficult to say the least. Stay tuned!! We are off to bed!

U.S.S. Chrysler Imperial

Our move is approaching faster and faster every day. Part of our move entailed moving our 1962 Chrysler Imperial. People have called the car several nicknames because of it's size. DH has had an Imperial since High School. He can't remember one time that the car had fit on any one's car trailer. We thought we would try our trailer to see if it would fit and were pleasantly surprised to find that it did. We hauled the car out to our friends Karen and Dave's farm house & stored it in their barn. Our plans are to come back in the spring once the snow melts to retrieve it. Below are a few photos to show you how much of the trailer it used. We had about 3/16" to work with between wheel wells inside the trailer. DH hit the mark the first time loading it. Amazing how he has an eye for centering things. Must be his love of design and the fact he's had the car since High School. Impressive sweetie! Great job!

Did we mention that DH has never strapped a vehicle down in a trailer before??? Well with a little thinking and a few different options of placement for the straps, it wasn't long before it was pulled into place and wasn't going anywhere. We got the truck & trailer on the road to Dave and Karen's & you could feel the weight of the car in the trailer but the truck had NO problems handling the weight. We figure all of our stuff in the trailer will weigh half the weight of the Impy.

Family Truckster - Arizona bound!

Hey everyone, we finally went and picked up our trailer so we can start organizing the essential and non essential items for our move. Everyone is wondering if we are putting our house up on the market. We have decided that we are going to try and rent it out at this point. We are going to rent a storage space here in town & put the non essential stuff there. We will come back in the early spring to pick up the rest. We feel we'll have a better understanding of where in the Phoenix, Arizona area we want to be in in respect to our job locations. The time is coming at us fast. Lots to do yet, but we have a pretty good jump on it. DH has never pulled a trailer of this size before, but with two attempts he was able to back it right up the driveway. DW and our friend Frenchy were very impressed. Our neighbor Michael and our other neighbor Elizabeth both stated how impressed they were for DH to never have pulled this trailer before to navigate so easily. Great job!

Arizona bound!

Well it's official, We are moving to Arizona. DW has accepted a job transfer & DH has turned in his time with his local company. DH has some irons in the fire with some "networking" amongst his friends and co-workers. We will post later how things turn out for him.
This last Saturday, we had our annual 4th of July party and this year was a difficult one due to us leaving but it was a great turn out & fun for all was had. A friend of ours had a water slide for sale & we thought this would be a perfect time to buy it. He dropped it off for us to blow up & try it. It was awesome! Our friends Dave & Karen stopped by and said we should use it. However, we decided that it would probably be a little dangerous with people consuming alcoholic beverages and launching off a slide! We have decided that we aren't going to buy it. It would be just another one of "MANY" things we would have to try and move.
We were able to snap a photo of Dave & Karen sitting at the top of it.

These two are so cute! Usually Dave has a pink shirt on. We were disappointed he didn't have one on for this photo opportunity. Oh well!
Our friends lounged around conversing with one another and had a GREAT time. Our friend Dave, "Deputy Dave", had the chance to hold our newest member of the family, Carson, who attended the party as well.
I think he looks very natural with the little guy. If anyone who reads this has a single gal friend who is looking for the man of their dreams, look no further. Deputy Dave is a catch of a lifetime!
We had friends and family here as well knowing that this will be the last 4th of July party we will be hosting in Minnesota. It was great to chat & laugh about many topics under the sun. Did we mention the temp was 95 degrees? That didn't stop our fun and activities though.
We will surely miss our family and our friends who have been true to us through many difficult & wonderful times. We will miss all of you!!!!!! But note that this change in our lives will also allow our friends to broaden their horizons to visit us and to experience things many haven't had the opportunity to experience. We look forward to ALL of you paying us a visit.

DW & DH went to Wal-Mart earlier in the day for a few things and DH ran across a T-shirt that was pretty funny. It says "tell ur gf 2 stop texting me". DH thought this would be a funny shirt to put on for the party because Karen texts DH on his cell phone. Well he wore it & Dave & Karen about laughed themselves into a frenzy. It was a pretty cool moment. Here is a picture of DH & our friend Karen doing what they do best: texting away.

Again we want to thank all of you guys for attending & know we will miss all of you VERY, VERY much. We are planning on keeping the blog alive by sharing our moving photos & our adventure to Arizona.