Building progress and a trip to the fair.

I am not sure how to tie all of the events together in a creative way. It may be a bit of sleep deprivation on my part but I am still trying to put together this day in my head. It was a very eventful night at work followed by a bone scan and then building on the property. After that Kris took us to the Greene County Fair to see the demolition derby. He was very shocked that I had never seen one before. I think I know why I never have! If you have ever thought whatever you may be doing was the most senseless thing there could be, I assure you this picture will let you know that it is not! Apparently the goal is to see how much destruction you can commit and still be driving in the end. The place was surrounded by firemen and paramedics and tow trucks. The stands were filled with very interesting people. It was a thing you should watch at least once in your life! Kris's parents are here and it is great to have them nearby. Despite a little nailing incident, Kris and his Dad are making great strides on the framing. I am sending the front and back view today. I hope you all are having a very meaningful day!

Helping with other walls...

First of all, here is the most current view. It now has some walls above it but they are not up yet so this is how it looks. I was a little envious of the speed that Extreme Home Makeover was able to complete this step! :) We spent a bit of this weekend with some friends and family helping out with some of their projects. Kris went to Vonn's house and I don't have any pictures of that. The kids and I went to PA to see some of my family.

We hadn't seen David, Joanie, and their girls in over 3 years and they had never met Isabel. It was fun catching up with them even for a short while. We got to see the house that Peter and Amanda are restoring and help out there for a while. Catherine, Mark, and their girls hosted this adventure. It was a lot of fun and in one day my kids got to see 8 of their cousins. Kris's parents are coming up today for the week so hopefully the house pictures will start to look a little more exciting!

New views

Two new looks for today....

I let the kids up on top of the sub flooring for a picture. This was about all my nerves could handle! It seems no home is complete without a Tyvek picture so here it is! I know Josh will appreciate this.

Happy Birthday!

This was a day to connect with our special friends from FL. We were honored to spend McKayla Kinsey's 11th birthday with her in Ohio. Kristianna was so thrilled to be with her best friend on such a big day. She wrote her a song! If you think these little birds are cute, you should see Isabel show you what they look like with their little mouths open! This is the same nest from a picture posted earlier. They have hatched are are apparently hungry. Kris and Vern got all the sub flooring on today. The place is starting to take shape. It is so exciting to see progress. While they were adding structure to walls, Jen and I took the kids to climb walls...at the mall and at Cedarville. They had a lot of fun with their friends today.

Prayers of Thanks...

Lord,

Thank you today for safety for the guys, for Vern and Vonn Kinsey who helped us SO much today, and for a job I need to run to now!

Amen

Rocks and Trees

The kids and I spent most of the morning transplanting little seedlings to where the mower won't bother them. The kids refer to them as Christmas trees and they do smell like them. We are not entirely sure what kind they are or how about 50 of them have ended up on our place but we decided to give them a better chance at life. If you click on this picture you may see orange flags that are markers. They are on the back and right side of our rectangle now. While we were digging them up we found A LOT of rocks that bother the mower so began piling them up to pick up later. Kris spent most of the day working on anchor bolts and getting ready for the Kinsey brothers to join us tomorrow. It rained on and off all day today and was in the 70's. It was a nice day to be planting but a little muddy. The rest of the day was actually spent on laundry! :)

New friends

We have found some new things on our property. We were looking for baby trees and found a nest of these cute little eggs on the ground. Wesley found the toad just before church. Kris has started to get the slab ready for the garage/apt. Help is coming this weekend so hopefully there will be more to post soon. We have found about 20 more little evergreen-type trees scattered over our land and are collecting rocks to make a wall someday.

Robbing a day...

When I stayed with my brother David for a summer he had a phrase for packing an extreme amount of things into a small amount of time. It was called "robbing a day" because all you did should normally take two days to complete. These times often included a shortage of sleep as well. Today was one of those days. I worked 11p-7a. I picked up the rest of the family and we drove to Athens (2 hours away) to get our tractor. Apparently the best deals for this type are there! We drove back in time for Kristianna to attend her babysitting class at our church at 1 pm. We had to cut some of the grass when we returned and test out the new toy! Kris's parents helped us tow the tractor from Athens and are probably as exhausted as we are! The picture shows Kris's dad and Isabel taking a test drive. Our slab is poured, forms removed, and expansion joints are in place. Now we are almost ready for the wood!

Isabel goes to the neurologist tomorrow for her get acquainted visit. She is doing very well weaning off her medication and increasing her verbal skills daily. We are hoping her new doctor shares our opinion.

We have a slab! Now we can build...or get ready to build. Progress is being made but it might look like this for a few days. Soon the weeds will make even this much hard to see so that is our goal for the next few days. We took Wendy, Dominec, and the girls to our favorite spot to keep cool. They all seemed to enjoy it as much as we do. Since it was 90 degrees today it was a great place to be. We also went to Youngs for ice cream before they had to take off. It was great to have them here!

GUESTS

In the midst of trying to make new friends and make introductions to strangers, it was SO nice to share some memories with familiar faces in our new location. Wendy and the kids drove out to see us today and friends of hers invited us over for dinner. We all had so much fun. Her visit was such and encouragement to us. Isabel especially was excited to see her best bud and the older ones seemed to have a lot of fun on the water slide. Wendy's visit came at a great time as well because we are a little stuck on our building progress until a few things happen. Tomorrow the slab is scheduled to be poured so other then watering our little plants and killing poison ivy there wasn't a lot to do this weekend. No dramatic property pics today! I hope everyone had a great weekend. We are grateful today for our friends both old and new and for the encouragement God sends us with skin on just when we need it.

Something vertical

Our new neighbor Kathy asked me today how it felt to have something vertical on the property. Here is our new shed. Building #1...We are excited!

They placed the wire on the foundation today, too.

Happy 4th of July!

Sunburns, sawdust, and a shed

Hopefully by the time you all read this update this little shed will be finished. It still needs shingles, stain, hinges, and a door, but it is almost done! This is what we have done this weekend. I hope all the runners and families from FL know that the gift cards enabled Kris to purchase the needed equipment. Thanks, guys! You can see just a portion of the foundation for the garage. The slab still isn't poured but hopefully will this week or early next week. The kids and I planted a small flower garden and transplanted about 20 tiny Northern Red Cedar trees we found growing in the back 2 acres. Kristianna also bought a dying dwarf nectarine tree for $1.86 at Lowes that she is hoping will grow. We planted that and said a lot of prayers! :) I begin working nights tonight so it may be a few days before I can post again. Hope you all have a fabulous 4th! Wish we could be in Ticonderoga watching fireworks instead but will be delivering some very patriotic babies instead. Now... off to help Kris with the shingles...