We drove to Hollywood, FL while Arthur stayed at the Hidden Valley Tiny Home and RV Park in Wylie, TX. This allowed us to be at Sammy’s third birthday party, celebrate Thanksgiving with the growing Gomez family, and take on their substantial project list. Here is a picture of the T-day table setting with turkey hidden in the middle and dishes of MFI’s corn soufflé, beans, potatoes, and cranberry sauce aligned front to back. The wine was a King Stag blend, which was an excellent compliment to a very delicious meal. Thanks to all who cooked.
Sarah and Michael had requested we bring our Marcel Breuer Wassily Chairs from storage, so they could be put them to good use, and we found a backyard Chiminea they liked. Each was loaded securely into a U-haul for transportation south.
On the way down, we stayed at one of our favorite B&Bs, the Hamilton House Inn in West Monroe, LA (population 13,065). The young proprietors have spent a lot of time restoring the inn themselves, a never ending process we know well. However, they have created a very comfortable and friendly environment for guests. As always, we enjoyed the period architectural details combined with the necessary modern features. Since it was nearing the Christmas Holidays, the downtown was colorfully decorated for the holidays and this added agreeable ambiance to our stay.
As planned, we arrived in time to celebrate Sammy’s 3rd birthday. The chiminea was sealed on the outside and quickly readied for use.
We went to Zoo Miami, which has been a popular outing even without someone having a birthday. Not our first visit to the zoo, so unsure of why I took so many pictures as we strolled through the various habitats. Was a fun outing!
The first major project was pressure washing the driveway, walkway, and patio pavers. The picture of Sarah (what a trooper) illustrates the clean versus dirty pavers. Once cleaned, a self-hardening sand was broomed into the joints. As an alternative to the sand, I tried caulking some of the joints on the patio and walkway; however, while this didn’t meet expectations, it turned out to be good enough. Michael applied a paver sealant to finish the job.
My final contribution for the backyard was refinishing two wood patio furniture pieces and painting the garage concrete threshold to match the house color.
While Mike and Sarah focused on the driveway, I did the patio and connecting sidewalk. Here is the entire backyard in panorama. It has come such a long way from what they had inherited upon moving in.
Michael purchased a backyard shed from Home Depot and asked us to lay a foundation of concrete pavers, assemble the shed, and position it on the pavers. He’s a stickler for ensuring all of our work is level, and we didn’t disappoint.
Next, their garbage container area in the alley needed some help. Most of the pavers were broken and the area was overgrown. They bought larger pavers, and we built a much cleaner and more functional trash site. I also hung new address numbers on the fence behind the containers.
While inspecting our work on the trash area, Sarah noticed how overgrown the alleyway was outside the new deck fencing. Since we were there and had the tools and labor, we cleaned up the brush and debris and replanted some desireable flora.
When the kids were doing renovations before first moving in, they found water damage in the northeast corner of the dining room floor. There wasn’t any obvious cause from within the house, but Michael saw related damage under the outside eave. We posited damaged roof tiles were the original source of the water, and while that had long ago been repaired, what had been damaged still existed. Ahh, next project! I removed the warped eave panel, which exposed the rotten roof decking and ceiling joists, then replaced the damaged wood, closed the eave, and painted it. Looked just like new..
Michael is never one to stay idle. He’d been fiddling with the above ground, outdated lighting for the front sidewalk for years and had recently purchased some new low-profile walkway lights. After we pressure washed the front porch and walkway, he installed them. Michael reused the old walkway lights in the front flower beds for accent lighting and strung some additional lights for the backyard deck. The home at 1526 Monroe Street was ready for the Christmas season.
Since we all had the holiday spirit, one of us proposed we start a family tradition and design our own Christmas drink. Frankly, each of us got into it heavily.
Inspired by the salted rim of a Margarita, we elected to rim the glasses with toasted marshmallow and dip it into crushed peppermint. Michael is a fan of good rum, so he brought out his Captain Morgan Private Stock and poured it over ice. Nothing says Christmas like egg nog, so we used it as our mixer. We may have over done the garnishes a bit, but this was our protoptype after all. We added a cinnamon stick, small candy cane as a stir stick, and stuck half of a dark chocolate mint cookie on the rim using more marshmallow as adhesive. OK, it wasn’t the greatest looking Christmas drink, but it sure had some great holiday flavors. We wondered what improvements the future may hold.
Of course, we spent as much time as possible spoiling the Gomez grands. Happy was 6 months old and just sitting up. There was a lot of holding him and feeding him. Sammy and I still went on our walks and talks, and visited the beach as a family several times. Here are a few of many photos.
We were very busy and having so much fun that our month with the Gomez family flew by all too quickly. We enjoyed helping with their projects and cherished the time spent with all of them. Already looking forward to our next visit, whenever that might happen.
