Leaving on a jet plane

Actually I have left and came back from vacation. I went back home to Wyoming to visit my parents and take a trip to our ranch. I flew out on Frontier Airlines aboard "Stretch" the Great Egret. You see, the airplanes have different animals on their tails and each one has a name.

I will post my trip with multiple posts, I am not sure exactly how many but I did take a lot of videos and pictures.

Bonus Picture!!!! Our first tomatoes!!!!

The $7.62 ice cream

This week we have been having a "heat" wave. I used quotes because I know to others our definition of heat is not the same. Today our temp was 92F (have a mentioned we have no central air) so it became a beach day at our favorite beach, Coronado. The beach is deep and long and unlike Pacific or Mission beach there is usually not a problem finding parking. Coronado also has the Hotel Del.
Today was one of the most crowded days I have seen at this beach, but even still it was really pleasant.

 
At the Del there is an ice cream shop, MooTime (similar to Cold Stone), and it is almost always packed on days like today. However there was hardly anyone in line so I made a command decision to get an ice cream. Turned out it was a really crappy decision. I had a vanilla ice cream with black berries mixed in. The ice cream was really soft, almost melting, now I know why there wasn't a line there.

 
They must have really raised the prices because I don't remember ever paying that much. The lady actually said the price with  a strait face.

Completing the Vanity

If you remember, we took an IKEA dresser drawer and hacked it into a vanity. One of the problems with this, is the drawers will not close because of the plumbing.

So "A" made the plan of how we can modify the dresser. In the end it was much easier than what I anticipated. We used a leftover piece of redwood that was the same thickness but was an inch shorter.

On the top drawer the sides had to be narrower and the middle piece needed to be shorter because of the sink.

The only tools needed was a tape measure, miter saw, jig saw, staple gun with compressor, and wood glue. It took less than two hours and that is with a lunch break.

Slaters 50/50

Today, every Thursday, is lunch day with the boss and occasionally we try new places. You might have seen this restaurant on the news lately. Slaters is a burger joint and their signature patty is 50% bacon and 50% beef, hence the name Slaters 50/50. The reason they were in the news, is this month they are offering a 100% bacon burger. The patty is all bacon with two strips of bacon, bacon dressing, bacon cheese and an egg. It seems they are trying to kill their customers.

I didn't have the guts to go with the 100% bacon burger but went with the 50/50, American cheese, tomato, onion, lettuce and it was pretty good. We also shared onion rings (in the background), which were not very good in my opinion.

Overall it's not too bad but pretty darn expensive. For both of us it was almost $30. Normally we try to stay under $10.

Master Bath Project Nearing the End

Today we are one step closer to finishing this project. I have installed the faucet for the vanity and we replaced the light fixtures. This week the glass company finally came and installed our glass wall and delivered the two pieces of glass for the storage cabinet.

We bought a glass door cabinet from IKEA for storage since we needed a replacement for the one we took out. We liked it a lot but didn't like the solid panels on the side and "A" found a site called IKEA Hackers, just as the title says, they take nothing but IKEA furniture and modify them. In this particular case we removed the top side panels and had glass made to replace them. Brilliant!!!

Today I installed the toilet which was not as easy as it should have been.  When we removed it at the beginning of the project there was a mortar base that it was resting on. I thought that when we resurfaced the floor and then installed the tile it would raise the floor up enough so that the toilet would rest on the floor. But, alas, that is not the case.

As you can see the flange is too high and now I had to figure out the best way to fix it.

1. Call the plumber and pay several hundred dollars to lower the flange and possible damage the floor.
2. Raise it with a bed for mortar.
3. Shim it and call it a day.

I went with door number three.
 
I bought some shims, and unlike our Olympians uniforms, these are made in the good 'ole U.S. of A. I then took epoxy, and fixed the shims to to the toilet so that they wouldn't shift. Leveled it out and now we have a working toilet. I just need to either grout or caulk around the front of the toilet so that it will fill the gap. I will leave the back exposed just in case I have any leaks.

Now we just have to fix the gap from the tub and tiles and then modify the drawers on the vanity to fit around the plumbing.

Salad of Vegetables

Today we finally decided to plant our vegetable garden. Well at least a small one. I always wanted tomato and green/red pepper plants and "A" wanted sweet basil and cilantro.  We are attempting to try and grow them in an existing planting bed, unfortunately it doesn't have full sun due to the trees. If this doesn't work out then I have one other spot that might work.

We raised the bed slightly with cedar and added four bags of miracle grow panting mix. I wasn't too sure on the type of tomato that I wanted so I went with the smaller stalk and got a champion tomato plant.

I will keep you posted as to the progress of our garden.

Sweet Basil

Cilantro

Big Bertha

Bell Red Beauty

Champion Tomato

P.S. I do know that tomatoes are a fruit, and basil/cilantro are herbs. Smarty pants (you know who I am talking about)

Retiring the Grill

The new grill finally arrived (just in time for the 4th) and I had the "privilege" of assembling it. Overall it wasn't too bad. My old grill was going on 10 years and was showing its age, not too mention it was just too small when we had any parties. This new one is about 1 1/2 times the size.
We wanted a complete stainless grill but the cost was ridiculous. If you go to Home Depot or Lowe's they had generic run of the mill grills that were not completely stainless. At the BBQ grill stores they had all stainless but you could not find one for less than $1,500 with most of them easily over $2,000. I even saw some for $5,000.
 
Since the old one was a Sears Kenmore we decided to go to Sears and take a look at what they had and ended up buying this one for $600. I still cringe at paying that much for a grill but it is a really nice one.

Also this week we finished painting the roof and today I sanded the columns and painted them. Since the columns were "rough" doug fir, if you got too close they would take your skin off. So I borrowed a belt sander from my boss and used 40 grit then 120 grit sandpaper. Once completed I then painted the columns to match the roof.