Labor of love...

We have been coming to the southeast Phoenix area for 3 years now. The first year we started out staying at Picacho Peak state park while we drove up to visit family. Then, one of Vaughn's cousins, that lives in Texas, bought a house here; we parked in their driveway until they came up for their first 'snowbirding' season a month later. When they got here, we were able to help them with some work that needed to be done to the house. We got to know family that none of us, except Vaughn, had ever met, and we totally adopted them (like it or not! LOL!)
Last year, we stayed for a month and helped them landscape the front yard of their house, and promised to be back next (this) year to do the back.

So, having given our word (and that fact that our time in AZ would not be complete without a long visit to Larry and Carol's (and seeing the rest of our AZ fam!)), we have been parked in their driveway for the last month!
And we enjoyed keeping our word...

Larry and Carol (the kids call them Uncle and Aunt), wanted a patio with a small wall and firepit out the back door...

The guys dug down and leveled the area, brought in sand and leveled that, staked out the patio area, and began to lay pavers... (with a little help from little girls!)...

not sure how much 'help' they were, but they tried...

One day Vaughn went to look at a set of ceiling fans with another cousin (5 houses down) that had just bought their house here. While Vaughn was gone, the boys took over...

and laid about half of it before their dad got back. :) 'Uncle' Larry said that Vaughn should have just stayed gone longer - the boys were doing just fine without him! hehehe! 'Uncle' Larry and 'Aunt' Carol are more like an extra set of grandparents! LOL!

Once the main patio area was laid out, they began work on the 3 sidewalks...

While we have been here, we have been going to a family integrated church in Gilbert. (course, we make our own family integrated church wherever we go - our kids always stay with us in the services) One of the guys from the church came out and helped my guys, for a whole day, cut and lay the pavers to fill in the gaps in the pattern.

(Luke is on the right. ~Thanks so much Luke, we loved our day of fellowship with you !!!)

Then, when the guys called it a day, Luke had a fun science project for the kids; it involved an empty 2 ltr. soda bottle, water, and the air compressor... :)

One of the things with laying pavers is that you set them with sand (I don't know what the correct term is)- settling it down in the cracks between pavers. Bags and bags and bags of sand were sprinkled on, swept over the patio, and were then sifted down between the pavers by tapping on the pavers with a rubber mallet. The jarring of the bricks makes the sand settle down and pack between the pavers.

Peanut was really good at pounding on those pavers...

~and it didn't take the boys long to figure out that bouncing a basketball on the patio had the same effect as the mallet. The basketball was their choice of method for packing sand. LOL!

They were pretty good at sweeping around the sand for each other too...

Didn't get pictures of setting the wall, or even the firepit (I've been really lame about taking pics this trip!).

But, we already tried out the finished project...

Carole and Eldon came up from their house, and of course the rest of us, all spent the night around the fire pit Thursday night. Roasted hot dogs and made s'mores and gabbed, because, with the projects around here done, that means it's time to hit the road for us...

It was a nice final night at one of our favorite places in the whole country, but saying good-bye the next day was a bummer :(

I still have a few posts to catch up on of our time in AZ, but tonight finds us in Texas!

At a Walmart. With our slides out (gasp!). It's a bit of a story, but 2 years ago we camped at this same, busy WalMart, and made the news. Well, not the real news, but had our own thread on rv.net about inconsiderate Wallydockers! LOL! Apparently it's not kosher to put your slides out in a parking lot.?.even if you are within the designated parking sites.?. Anyway, this year, we pulled in and found quite a few other rvs here; and 2 very nice Class As with their slides out too! (phew!) LOL! Anyway, I'll keep you posted if we find that we have broken any other Wallyworld camping etiquitte. hehehe! I'll be lurking on rv.net to find out ;)

Tomorrow we are taking a bit of a detour from our original plans (we aren't very detailed planners!).

We're pretty excited what the next week and a half hold for us!!!