For spring break this year, we went to Mesa to gather with most of Eve's family (Peter and Anna's family were not able to come this time). Besides seeing family, Eve and I needed to travel to Thatcher to do some cleanup at one of our rental units, to get it ready to rent out.
We traveled to Mesa on Saturday, April 1st. (I just had to hurry and stop at a "Cornology" restaurant in Walnut Creek at the very start of our trip to get a 40 cup bag of what is now my favorite type of popcorn.) About halfway to Mesa we started hearing a loud knocking in the engine of our 2003 Town & Country minivan. We still drove it the rest of the way to Mesa, but feared there might be something really wrong with the engine. We not only needed reliable transportation to get back home, but we needed to drive 3 hours to Thatcher either Monday or Tuesday in order to have a few days to do the work we came out to do.
We took the van to a mechanic Monday morning and confirmed that a costly job to take out the engine to inspect it would be required, and then likely an engine replacement. We weighed our options and decided it was time to get a new van, something we had considered a couple years and had already saved up some money for. That same day, after doing some research, we went to a dealership and bought a 2016 Toyota Sienna. Being only 1 year old with about 13,200 miles, it is the newest vehicle we have ever owned. And it has several features that cars have had for many years now, but that are new for us, e. g. bluetooth connection to a smartphone (great for listening to music and making phone calls) and a rear-view camera. We also like that it is an 8 passenger, has more storage space, and gets better gas mileage than our old van. We left the old van with Gloria's husband, Raul, who wants to fix it up and give it to a sister of his in Mexico that needs a bigger vehicle for her family.
We stayed with Gloria and Raul in their new house they recently purchased and have done a lot of work to fix up. Our families usually gathered at either Heather and Heber's house or Gloria's to play and eat. Throughout the week the kids watched movies, played board games, had an Easter egg hunt, and played on a huge water slide Gloria and Raul rented. They were fantastic hosts, providing and cooking much of the food we had during the week.
On Tuesday Eve, Waylon, and I made our trip to Thatcher, leaving Haylee, Cameron, and Landon to have fun with their cousins. Bonnie Jean and Kevin's family traveled with us to see some family and friends in Thatcher, but traveled back to Mesa that night while Eve and I stayed in Thatcher until Thursday night. Eve and I worked about two and a half days along with Eve's cousin James, whose family we bought the property from last year, to clean out the basement of the back unit on the property and clean up some of the grounds around it. It also gave us the chance to make specific plans about making changes to some of the interior of the unit and outside in front of it to make it feel more like a separate home and more attractive to families who might want to rent it.
(Fun Fact: For the two nights we were there, we slept on an air mattress in one of the bedrooms of the house unit we were cleaning up. We slept in that same bedroom on the third night we were married back in 2003 when we visited Thatcher for our Arizona reception.)
We returned to Mesa late Thursday and had one more day in Mesa, Friday, before heading home on Saturday. I went out in the dessert Friday morning with Heber, Kevin, and Raul, to shoot guns at clay pigeons and targets. Kevin and Heber provided the guns we used, teaching Raul and I how to use them: a double pump shot 12 gauge shotgun, an AR rifle, and a few different types of 9mm handguns. It was fun to learn more about gun safety and how to handle these different weapons.
Fortunately, our trip home was less eventful than the way to Mesa, and we enjoyed having our new van for the 12 hour+ drive back to California.
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