Moving along!

I have discovered I am not very good at daily updates. Weekly seems to be working better for me -- plus, you can really see the progress being made week by week! On Tuesday they removed the forms for the concrete.
It looks great! It's fun to walk inside the house - through a door - and then look out a window! This is looking out the daylight basement.
The concrete walls had wire sticking out of them from ties that were used to hold the rebar in place. All of these wires needed to be knocked off so that's what Leonard and Kanyon did on Wednesday. We all worked on it a little bit. Swinging hammers up and down or side to side until the wire would break off. Kanyon and Kaydra were pretty good at it by the end. The first day that they worked on it Kanyon accidently hit Miranda with a hammer! He said that he kept telling her that she was too close but she wouldn't listen. I wasn't there but Leonard said it didn't bleed much.
He fixed her up with some superglue (disclaimer: don't try this at home!) and she seems to be just fine. It could have been much worse. The next project was to put tar on the outside of the house to help protect it from moisture. We gladly let Leonard have that job. It took three 5 gallon buckets of tar to cover everywhere that will be underground.


He came in with tar all over him -- he was even wearing a jumpsuit to protect his clothes and skin. He said that the steelwool worked really well to take it off! Crazy man! BUT, our contractor says it looks great and should be a good protection. Leonard also laid drain tile this week. It's not actually tile - like I thought - but a big long tube that goes around the foundation and helps water drain out instead of seaping through the foundation. Sounds like a good idea to me!

Thursday the plumber came out and worked on the rough plumbing that will be under the foundation and connected the house to the septic tank.
They worked all day in weather where it rained, hailed, blew, and even showed some sun. It was a crazy weather day. But in the end, they got it all done and ready to move on to the next step.

Friday the plumbing inspector came out and PASSED all the plumbing stuff :) and our excavator started digging our drainfield.

He finished that on Friday afternoon and the inspector from Panhandle Health came out and PASSED that off as well. So they backfilled over the drainfield (if it works, we will never have to see it again!) and started backfilling a little in the garage. It's fun to see a little bit of progress each day - it feels like we are really getting somewhere now!

Tomorrow they are going to fill the basement and garage with rock to get it ready to place the concrete on the floors. I think they are planning to lay the concrete floor for the basement on Tuesday and then start framing the subfloor for the main floor of the house on Wednesday. Things are still going well and we are still really happy with everything. It's been good that we can work a little bit over there now too.

The kids still have three weeks of school left (we don't get out until June 11) but we are comming to Idaho Falls this weekend for Memorial Day! Hopefully we will see many of you there!

And just to show you that Miranda is none the worse for wear, here is a last shot. Isn't she cute! This is her favorite place to be lately.

Foundation work & Soccer

It's been a busy week. We have had people working every day since last Monday. It feels good to finally see some progress --- a little intimidating as well. Last Tuesday they started setting the forms for the foundation. It's interesting that this is the part of the house that we hope to never see again. It's also the part that used the most concrete. We went through three full cement trucks. The cement crew says our foundation will last until the end of the Earth. The size of re bar they are using is usually used for commercial parking garages and stuff. We do have a lot of weight to hold up with all the logs, but it made us wonder a little bit about the engineer that designed the plans. In the end, we will have a very sound structure. Wednesday morning we officially passed our first inspection by the county - with flying colors. It was nice to have that out of the way. They gave us the go ahead to start pouring concrete so pour they did.
As I said, we went through three full cement trucks! It was pretty cool to watch them work. On Thursday they took the forms off the foundation and started building the forms for the walls. I am so glad I don't do that for a living.
It is a TON of work and to think that they have to tear it all down once the concrete is set. They can't even admire their work for very long. I think there were 5-7 guys out there all day building, hammering, and sawing wood to make the forms for our walls. In the end, it looks like wooden walls.
In between the two sides of the wall there is the space where the concrete goes. It was cool to see the house take shape a little bit. We could see where the doors and windows will be in the basement and where the garage will be as well. AND I am LOVING the view we will have out our daylight basement and off our deck - breathtaking!!! (once all the grass grows back of course:)!
On Friday they finished building the forms and the inspector came again to inspect and again we passed! Everything was finished Friday afternoon and they planned to wait until today to pour the concrete. So today they poured the walls of our house!

I can't wait until tomorrow when they will take off the forms and we can actually see the walls of the basement. Things are moving right along!!

In other news, Kanyon finished his soccer season. He played on an all-kindergarten team and LOVED it. He did quite well and was starting to really get the hang of the game by the end. He loves to score and managed to do so in nearly every game.
He's pretty competitive and really enjoyed playing. He played with several kids from his kindergarten class so that made it even more fun.
His teacher even managed to come out to watch a few minutes of one game. That made all the kids so happy! I am proud of him and how much he has grown up this year. He is reading quite well and starting to really catch the reading bug. He loves to be outside with his dad and seems to be following in his dad's footsteps with the hunting gene. He loves to be outside with his BB gun. I love him and I am go glad to have him in our family! Love you buddy!

Excavation Day

We actually broke ground today! It feels so good to say that! We have been planning this day for well over a year (more than that if you count the time dreaming about it). We thought we would dig last summer but it didn't work out -- but today, the waiting ended! It was a beautiful day with the sun shining and the temperature reaching near 70 by late afternoon. The excavator and our contractor arrived about 9:00. I spent about an hour with them making sure the house was facing the right direction and that it was going to be in the right place and then they started digging. They didn't finish until about 8:00 tonight. As before, pictures say it all so here they are!

Here they are before they started, measuring and figuring out where everything would go.

Here is Miranda when she saw the track hoe moving. She thought that machine was ALIVE!!! :) First couple scoops of dirt! Joe was the excavator and Dylan was the helper.
Here is Kanyon enjoying the big machines
This is the footing trenches for the garage
This is the septic tank
This is what it looked like about halfway through the day. They dug the garage and the basement corner which helped them dig and correctly place the septic tank. They placed the tank and then finished the rest of the house.
Here they are almost finished. We have SO MUCH DIRT!!!!!
More dirt!
This next one is the best picture. They are all finished and you can really see the change we had today! It is a little overwhelming and very exciting all at the same time!!
They will be setting footings tomorrow -- things are really underway! :)

Logs!

Our logs arrived on Friday! It was so cool! It finally feels like this is really going to happen. It better -- otherwise we have a lot of really expensive firewood! Len rented a big forklift tractor thing and was able to unload all the logs. He did it in about 3 hours. Not too bad for a beginner. I think he enjoyed the machine a little too much - he's already looking for an excuse to rent something else. The first load was the biggest and it was a little scary to watch. I thought for sure he was going to drop it - but he didn't. He did manage to almost get stuck as he was backing up with the first load. We were both a little worried about that. After the first load things went pretty smooth. Sorry, but this post is going to be mostly pictures because they tell it all!
It was overcast but didn't rain much. It sprinkled a little toward the end. We were VERY grateful for that. We had two trucks of logs -- it's weird to think that these are all going to come together to be my house! I can't wait!
Here is the first truck:

Here is truck #2:

Here is Kanyon sitting in the tractor - what is it with boys and big machines?!

Leonard with the last load off the first truck - those two guys were the truck drivers - Eric and MattThis was the very last load for the day -- Leonard was pretty precise by this time.
Here is a good picture that shows what we were up against.
As soon as the tractor started to leave the driveway it would sink. We are SO glad we put in the driveway last year. What would we have done?
And finally, here is the stack of logs that will one day be our house! It also shows the beating our driveway took with placing the logs.

These are some of the more interesting looking logs. It was fun to think - "Where will THAT log go?"

And last but not least, if you made it this far in the post you will receive a special treat. I missed Easter but Miranda looked so cute today that I had to take a picture of her in her new dress. I braided her hair this morning and she looked so pretty. She felt pretty too, spinning around the room like a ballerina. She's getting so big! Love that girl!

Now if only the rain will stop so we can dig a hole! Wish us luck -- some prayers would probably help too! :)