Joys of home ownership

Being a single woman and a homeowner, I have to pat my self on the back and say that I handle a lot on my own. I try very hard to stay on top of things and do the important things to maintain the value of my home. I am so lucky to have great neighbors too. Shawn who lives next door is a superintendent for a construction company. He helps me when I need help and is always more then willing to pop over. I guess part of owning a home is knowing that things will happen and dealing with them when the time comes. Last weekend was one of those times....
About 8 months ago, I noticed some water stains on my ceiling. It was winter and we had rain so I thought I had a roof leak. I had a roofing company come out and they thought it was my vent on my roof and he "patched" it and luckily didn't charge me. Months later, I noticed the stains had increased and thought well, guess the guy didn't fix it after all. I had the roofing company come out again. They told me they thought they knew where it was coming from and to schedule them to come out and repair it. I have had it on my list of things to do for months now and everyday I thought to myself, "Monsoon season is coming, I need the roofing people to come back out." This is one time I am glad I dropped the ball because last weekend I found out it was never a roof leak! I have had an AC leak for the last 8 months and did not know it.
Last Friday I randomly looked up at my ceiling and noticed a totally new area of water stains and a fresh bubble of water. I was very confused because at this point, we had not had any rain. So I called Shawn. Unfortunately he couldn't come over till Saturday evening. Saturday morning I work up to yet another new area of stains and more water and this time my floor was wet and it was dripping from a small hole!! When Shawn came over he went up in my crawl space and discovered an AC leak! He was moving some of my SOAKED insulation and barely touch my ceiling and it fell through. What a mess!! Luckily the AC guy came out on Sunday and the AC is now fixed but I have a hole in my ceiling and now have dry wall to repair!
I guess it is always a good idea to look on the bright side. The bright side of all of this is, 1,Atleast I wasn't out of town and 2, the AC worked the whole time and 3, It could always be worse!
original stains from what I thought was a rood leak

Last weekends mess!!
A big hole!

Mountains and Memories

July 16th I flew to Denver to visit my good friend Jami. Heidi flew in ealier in the day from KC. It was so good to see both of them and we had an action packed weekend. Since it was just a few days, we had a lot to pack in to a short time. Saturday we started the day with breakfast outside which was such a treat since in AZ it is too hot even in the morning to sit outside. We then drove through the Air Force Academy. It is a beautiful campus and was fun to see. We then went to watch Luke play in his baseball game. Scott is the coach so we got to see two Leahy's in action. We drove to down town Colorado Spings and had lunch a cute place before we ventured up Pike's Peak. I am so glad we had this on our list of things to do. I loved it! It was a breathtaking drive and view from the top. We drove through Garden of the Gods on our way home. This reminded me a lot of Sedona. It was also beautiful. We came home to a cooked dinner from Scott. :) Sunday we got up and hiked near Palmer Lake. Surprise, Surprise it was beautiful too!! Guess that is what you get in Colorado! We then did a little outlet shopping before meeting my friend Annie for a late lunch. Then to the airport we went and home we flew.
A weekend with good friends making more memories and once again realizing I have a lot to be thankful for and

Air Force Academy
Luke at bat with Scott pitching
Heidi, Jami and I at the top of Pike's Peak
View from the top with storm rolling in
Hail storm on the top of Pike's Peak
A beautiful rainbow on the drive down
Garden of the God
Jami, Heidi and I
The Leahy boys and I
Annie and I

Fabulous Fourth in the Pines

I had a great 4th of July up in Pinetop. Friday after work the dogs and I drove up to Pinetop and met, Mitzi, Jeff and the kids. Saturday we just hung out, had lunch over at the country club, Jeff played golf with a student he teaches that was also up. Mitzi and the kids went to see the twilight movie and I went for a walk with the dogs. We made dinner and played games that night. Then Sunday we went to the parade and then drove up the Greer to go horseback riding. We stopped first and had lunch at a little dive that actually turned out to be quite good. Horseback riding was so fun! I was able to take my horse out of line and work her around trees and even galloped a little. So Fun!! We grilled out that night and played Apples to Apples again and had lots of laughs. A nice way to spend the holiday, good friends and cool mountain air!
View down #18 at WMCC
One of the floats in the parade
My horse CoCo and I
Mitzi and her horse Blue
Jeff and Claire with Claire's horse, Winchester
Ethan on his horse Whammy
We're off....
Pretty stream along the ride