Football 9/23/14

Yea blurry iphone pics!!  I will say, it's hard to get a steady shot with all these little wigglers

Kick

Football 9/23/14 from Mollie McAuley on Vimeo.

Not sure if he's going to be my kicker....

Football 2 9/23/14 from Mollie McAuley on Vimeo.

Camper Rehab: Slow Progress

Trying to get just a little done on the camper every weekend.  I wish we had more time to devote to it, but it's just not going to happen

Drinking leftover beer from the Parish Picnic and working on the demo

Started to demo the ceiling and came across a billion and half ants.  Are they eating the glue?? Who knows, but they were raining from ceiling.  

Ants don't normally gross me out, but there were everywhere

Started to remove the front bed which we won't be using but need to keep the hardware (we're trying to keep everything that is even a maybe for reuse, you never know what will be impossible to find)  Fletcher looking freaked out because I made him sit for the picture

Our neighbors are actually being great about the camper, they are all very interested in the progress. We usually make a huge mess and then button everything back when we're done so it's not a total nightmare to look at all the time.  Then we sit out back and burn all the wood we ripped out.

Parish Picnic

A little over a year ago, after searching high and low, I found our church home.  It's a smaller parish about 20 minutes from us.  I never thought I could attend a church without kneelers, but this place was so amazing, I changed my mind about the whole thing.  They have an amazing youth program, and for as small as we are, there are just a gaggle of kids Charlie's age.  I grew up in a church with tons and tons of kids my age.  We all grew up together and were great friends, I want that for Charlie. 

We had service at a park for our parish picnic.  Church was in the park shelter and we had a brass band.  It was very casual and all the kids loved having church outside.  We couldn't have had better weather which helped.  We grilled out and, of course, I brought the beer.  (Gotta love Episcopalians) 

Our priest's oldest.  Couldn't you just eat her up?  I see Charlie's first crush!

We played kickball.  All the big kids and adults were super sweet and made sure to include the little ones

Church picnic from Mollie McAuley on Vimeo.

The brass band playing one of my favorite church songs....

Saturday Night

Another amazing dinner at El Pico and a walk around the courthouse where Harry Truman was a judge.

We had a crazy gorgeous weekend.  I LOVE FALL

Pack Leader Night at the Royals

My work took us out to the ball game. Royals are actually ok this year, so it was packed. They played the Tigers, so we were rooting for the Detroit!

Ready for the game - already has mustard on this shorts

Obligatory instagram family shot - Go Tigers!

Catch!

caught it!

Mom's turn

Someone's getting good!

Camper Rehab: the blue prints and tossing around ideas

Lets remind ourselves what we started with.  This picture will be at the beginning of almost every post so we can see how far we have come!

This was the old layout.  We are nixing the front bed (king size), we will be only doing one pop out in the rear.  We gave the stove, the fridge and air conditioner to the guy who owns the land where Matt hunts.  We will install a new fridge, maybe a new ac unit (only because we already have one that we don't use) but we will not be replacing the stovetop. It would probably be nice for breakfast and coffee, but it's just as easy to do it outside on your cookstove.  Plus, if it's hot, who wants to cook inside?  I just don't see the need, so we are nixing it

Here is the preliminary blueprint with the new lay out.  Instead of a tiny dinette that only fit 2 people on a good day, we are making the whole end of the camper an eating/card playing/drinking game having/fun zone.  It will also be a sleeping area.  We are contemplating putting a murphy bed along the front to make that bunk-like, but I'm not sure it's going to happen. We are salvaging the dinette table and the stainless steel sink, the rest are going to be rudimentary storage.  We are going to make this beast as space efficient as possible.  We are tearing this thing basically down to the trailer and building up.  The great thing is all the wiring and the converter is in perfect shape which is extremely helpful.  We are currently looking for scrap yards with RVs so we can maybe get some second hand windows and a door.  A DOOR, let me know if anyone has a camper DOOR.  CRAZY expensive online, that we will almost have to buy second hand.  On the plus side, we are wrapping it in metal Matt can get at work (5% over cost)

The trailer will look a lot different, but this gives you an idea of what the other pop out bed would look like

Right now the bed would be on a large platform that would be pushed in and out of the camper. It would take up an enormous amount of space that is unusable to make room for it when it's time to travel.  I'm hoping we can do it like the above so it folds up, not in, but I'm not sure if we will have access to the material to do it that way....we shall see

My pinterest boards are already filling with ideas.  I've stopped pinning the adorable red and teal air streams these women totally makeover and sell cupcakes out of, time to get realistic.  This thing is going to be pretty no-fuss. A girl can dream though...

I'm not sourcing anything- if you need something, head over to my pinterest board.  There is a button on the right side of my page. I'm just too lazy... I know, I know, irresponsible blogger

I may not get my red and teal camper, but a little battery powered chandelier for some Glamping?  Just might be in order.

Pop-Up Camper Rehab - First Post, The Pick Up #whathavewegottenourselvesinto #grosstopia

This is the 1991 Jayco pop up that Matt slept in when he went deer hunting for years. I've even slept in there a few times.  A few years back, something happened and the top and it couldn't go all the way back down and it went downhill fast.   It belonged to Matt's good friend's dad. He handed over the title to us, he just wanted it gone.This is also the camper Matt got bit in by a brown recluse and had to be taken to the emergency room.  

First thing we did was TEAR OFF EVERY PIECE OF FABRIC POSSIBLE.  We burned everything down there, it wasn't even worth trying to close the thing with all that nasty canvas and mattresses.  (Oh the  mattresses...YUK)

Found lots of bugs, spiders, salamanders, every animal you could think of.

Even a birds nest on the air conditioner

Believe it or not, this thing hasn't moved in 10 years and we were able to pull it out, air up the tires and those tires got us all the way back to Kansas City.  The rubber was well shaded so they held up.  Still pretty impressive.  The lights even worked for the highway and it rode super smooth all the way home.  This thing was plush back in the day.  Our neighbors are going to LOVE us.  Sometimes it's nice not living in a stuffy HOA neighborhood.

Because it was unable to close, everything has to go due to water damage, dirt, and bugs.  We will be salvaging the sink and probably the table counter top. We have big plans for the layout, more to come.  I'm going to try to document every step.  I've looked everywhere on the internets for rehabs.  Lots of before/afters but not many details.

We just went in there and started unscrewing anything we could. Threw away what we had to, recycled what we could and burned the rest. 

Dinette gone

Made for great bonfire material

Labor Day Weekend - Bennett Springs

We headed down to Lebanon, MO where Matt deer hunts to pick up an old pop up camper we are rehabbing (LOTS more on that to come).  That took up all of Saturday.  We camped Saturday night on the Niangua and headed out to Bennett Springs Sunday morning before having to head back to KC for a 7pm T Bones game.  

It is seriously one of the most beautiful places ever, this picture does it NO justice.  Sometimes I seriously dislike Missouri and it's lack of lakes, I was spoiled growing up.  But Minnesota has nothing on Missouri's river systems, insanely beautiful.

Bennett Springs produces 100 million gallons a day, so the water is freezing with a strong current.   Not to mention CRYSTAL clear.

We were short on time, so we didn't catch much, but was a great time, as always.

2 minutes on the road

Let's look at funny crap

Mollie humor...

honest logos

The drawings on this made me laugh so hard...and feel guilty for EVER giving this speech

I believe I am still traumatized by group projects in college.  

I'm not sure why these are so funny to me, but here are a bunch.  I send these to Matt all the time, he doesn't find the amusement in them that I do...

aw yiss

Fletcher...every day

Don't do it kids

One of the most important things you can teach your children.  I posted this on FB, it got a big reaction.  People have strong views on this issue.  Mayo people, do it for the children....

Every football game to me

Genius marketing tool

nope

hahahahahahahahaha