Goofy Kids - Goofy Dad

The kids are having a blast - but at times, it's hard to tell who's having more fun - the kids or dad. :)

Tomorrow - the inspector will be by and they hope to pour concrete for the walls!

Wanted!

Silly girls!

Goofy boys!

Getting ready to pour concrete!

Foundation Rebar

Having a hard time visualizing things, but it appears our house is going to have an AMAZING view. If you look at the first photo, we were told that the top of the rebar is the top of the basement. We'll have two floors above that. We're definitely finding that this is a huge learning process, much different than when we built our first house.

Looking at the 3rd/4th bay of the garage.

Looking at the daylight basement.

Jordan in the basement, Alan standing at the garage.

Another view looking at footings.

Fire!!!

Below is a picture that Alan took tonight of a fire across the highway from where the property is. The fire, which is now under control, burned approximately 1,000 acres. Unfortunately, we live near a lot of undeveloped property so dry, late-summer fires will probably be a little unsettling.

Breaking Ground

I guess it's official! We're building a house! The crews showed up on Monday to get started. As of today, the footings are in! The kids ask daily to go up and "visit the property". Not a clue if we are on track for our December closing, but we're hoping!! Alan called this morning to inform me that the bathroom was put in (a.k.a. a port-o-potty).

Click on the pictures to enlarge.

Our crew - breaking ground!

Footings are in!

A view looking West. That small little bump to the right of the sunrise we believe is Mt. Adams.

Beautiful Aerial Pictures

A good friend of ours owns an aerial photography business. On a recent flight, he took a gorgeous picture of our new property. It is below. By the way, if you or someone you know is in the market for any aerial photography, he does an amazing job! I'd love to forward you on his contact info (yes this is a plug for him - he's great!).

The two yellow circles you see in the far off distance (which really aren't as far as they look - are our church on the left and the kids' school on the right).

View of the property.

Another view of the property.

Met with Mr. Designer

We met with the architect last night to go over the plans of our new house (thank you to Uncle Kiki and Aunt Jody for watching the kiddos). We've got it laid out mostly to our liking. My laundry room is quite small - maybe that will make me spend less time in there. :) I guess I'm anticipating the years ahead of hours of teenage laundry. :) I didn't however want to give up the gathering space and the wall with the view. Soooo, I'll just have to make my sacrificies.

Here were a few of the second floor plans that we have been playing around with. He's making most of his adjustments from the first plan . You can click on the image below to pull up a larger version.

On to a new chapter in our life! We finally made the decision of building a new house. Trust me, lots of prayer went in to this decision. It's been something we've been discussing for about 5 years now! It was a friend of ours who showed interest in our property that kind of set this in motion. Since then, everything has fallen in to place, by the grace of God! We never had to list the our home and what is even more amazing is that we will be allowed to rent back and stay here until our home is complete! Tonight we enjoyed watching the fireworks from our new property. We had an amazing view of the fireworks from the river and also views of other area firework shows, including the ones at the stadium.

Here are some shots!!! Hope everyone had a great Fourth of July and had a chance to reflect on the many lives who have saved our freedoms!