The MAP progress continues

We continue to work on our pop up tent...we've decided to call her our MAP, which stands for Mobile Adventure Platform or maybe Mobile Adventure Palace (we'll see how good the remodel turns out!). We took her for service this week. She got all her systems checked out and a couple repairs and a new battery.   We have started to paint all the cabinets white. We've done two coats of primer and one coat of paint on all the cabinet doors and two frames. We still have to do the third one which has the sink, fridge, and stove in it so it's still in the trailer. We need to tape off everything to paint this part, but we are under way... 

 Mike went today and purchased plywood to make new counter tops and got the basic sizes cut out.

Mike made the most delicious, yummy turkey in his smoker too. He's learning to use his new smoker to great results!

Camper Remodel Underway!

Here are some before pictures. It's not in bad shape, but it was really dirty. I spent most of yesterday scrubbing walls, ceiling, fridge...there was mold and mildew in several places, so I used a lot of mold and mildew cleaner. As an added plus, it smells much better now too. As you can see, the fabric is pretty dated as well. 

(After recently being left at the kennel for a week, Aspen is nervous and determined she's not getting left again, so every time we step foot in the camper, she's right there!)

While I was scrubbing, Mike was removing the cabinets. We are going to replace the flooring and paint the cabinets before reinstalling them. We've also been removing the canvas one panel at a time to clean it. 

Yuck! More mildew/mold growing under cabinets!

We spent a couple hours shopping too, so I've got new fabric for seat cushions (a red check), valances (red), and curtains for beds (fun antique map pattern). I have a lot of sewing to do. We bought white paint for the cabinets, and a light latte brown color for the walls below the beds. We planned to get vinyl with a wood look for the floor until we found out it was special order and would take awhile to come in. Plus, at $2.09 a square foot it wasn't going to break the bank, but it was more costly. Instead, we found a great bargain--clearance vinyl that looks like stone tile at $0.30 a square foot. That means our new flooring will cost a total of $18, and that's buying more than we needed because they come in 30 sq foot boxes. Turns out the flooring was way cheaper than all my upholstery fabric! 

We're underway anyway. We have a lot still to do, but all winter still to work. Jack doesn't understand why we can't go camping right now! It looks like the cars are destined to be parked outside for awhile as this project has taken over the garage. More updates to come...

Christmas 2015

We had a very Merry Christmas! 

There was just enough snow on Christmas Eve for Grandpa to pull the kids around on the sled behind his ATV. There aren't any hills to slide down, but they still got the idea. It was fun for about 15 minutes until they got cold. I took one ride around with Jack, but there wasn't quite enough snow to make it a smooth ride with my weight. It didn't matter to the boys at all that it was only an inch or so. They had fun with the sleds and then just throwing snowballs around.

After that, we had a great dinner and played "Heads Up!" on my phone with everyone. 

Christmas morning dawned pretty early. We started breakfast around 6:30am and gifts shortly thereafter. The boys started with their stockings while they waited for everyone else to get fully moving.

Then, there were lots of gifts. It took about an hour for everyone to get through they gifts. Everyone got lots of good stuff. 

After the gifts, there were lots of toys to help kids with. The adults were kept busy putting batteries in things, helping read instructions, building lego kits, and more. Then, it was time to get the dinner started. We had a great home cured ham, an 18 pound prime rib, potatoes, green beans, squash, rolls, and more...It was yummy! We had 15 people on hand for dinner and more that came over later for leftovers later.

After dinner, Mike was conscripted into taking family pictures. Here are a few of them:

It was hard to get everyone looking and smiling at the same time! And the boys were upset they had to take their hats off, but still they turned out pretty good. We got a few smaller group shots too:

Doesn't Haydn look pretty in her Christmas dress? Chase and Braidyn are also getting big!

We tried hard to get a picture with all the grandkids too, but some of them were done cooperating and didn't want their  picture taken anymore. They did not turn out well. Here's the best of the bunch. Look at those faces! Oh well...

Overall, we had a great time and were all tired by the end of the day. Then Saturday morning, we had to pack up and head home. We had better weather coming back than going, but we ended up getting stuck in ski traffic coming off Mt. Hood, which delayed out arrival into Portland by about 3 hours. We literally took 2 hours to go about 5 miles passing the ski resort, so we didn't reach the outskirts of Portland until after 9pm.  It was a long day and a late night.

Snow!

Jack was sooooo excited to see snow again as we drove over the mountains on the way to Nevada. This is US 26 on the south side of Mt Hood, which had several feet of snow ( though nice clear roads). 

Jack had fun. He was so excited he literally rolled in the snow. He was not fully dressed for snow since this was just a quick bathroom stop. His thin cotton pants were so soaked we had to take them off to dry, so he spent the next 150 miles sitting in the car in just his underwear with a blanket over his lap :). 

We ran into snow again on day 2. This is Burns OR. There was about 3 inches and falling. It was a very slow drive into Winnemucca. Took us close to 8 hours to go maybe a 4 hour drive. 

Just for dad

This is my dad- he was giving me grief about not updating my blog often enough. 

Yesterday, we took the kiddos to a bounce house. They played hard and were very tired after! Tommy had fun throwing balls out.

They all liked bouncing. 

The big boys liked the jousting bouncer, and Jack liked playing with his big cousins. 

Miss Haydn wasn't too sure about it.  She thought it was scary. 

Daddy was being lazy... He was sitting down on the job while I had little boys ganging up on me and losing races with Braidyn. 

Christmas Festivities

We bought a 1994 Coleman pop up for cheap over the weekend.  We are going to spend the winter (after Christmas) fixing it up and remodeling, and then we will plan to use it camping all summer! It's small enough to fit in the garage too, so we don't have to store it. 

Last night, it wasn't raining for the first time in two weeks, so we took Jack to see snowflake lane. It's a street in Bellevue where they do a little nightly show/parade.  He had fun!

The pics aren't great because it was my cell phone at night with too much movement, but you get the idea. 

They even had snow, which excited Jackson.  Of course, it was really soap flakes spitting out of machines, but it looked right.  

Jack out his own hat on. Can you tell? What a cutie! 

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a good visit with mom and Haydn for Thanksgiving! We went down to Lesa and Colin's for the actual holiday, and back and forth to each other's houses several times during the week. It went by very quickly. We didn't do much besides let the boys play, eat, and a little holiday shopping.

I didn't take many pictures, although we did do a couple photos of Haydn and Jack in their holiday finest. Haydn doesn't love getting her picture taken.

Over the weekend, we put up all our Christmas decorations. I did inside Friday and finished up outside today. Jack was a big helper.  The pictures of outside lights didn't come out very well, but at least they are up.