More RAIN!!

Late breaking news... ITS RAINING AGAIN!!!!!  Not only is it raining, its FLOODING!  Weather man said this is a historical event.  8-9 inches in 24 hours.  Loy's boss called him to let him and all his coworkers not to come downtown cause it was flooded.  I have heard report of several people stuck on the roads trying to get somewhere, but can't get anywhere cause of the flooding.  I am in the process of packing up to go to Texas to stay with my sister-in-law for the week, but not sure I should even leave for a while because of the roads.  What does that mean for our house?  Not sure yet.  They weren't suppose to come out till Tuesday and Wednesday to do heat and air, but even if it stops raining I am not sure if the will still be able to come out and work.  Mark told us when we started "This is the perfect time to start because it really starts to dry out and we won't have much problems with weather."  Of course this has to be the year of all years of setting all kinds of records and really crazy unpredictable weather.  I guess that is Oklahoma for you though.  C'est la vie!

Pictures added...

The beginning.  Thought it was good.  Pretty close to the road, but still draining well.

Right up to the edge.

Then this and hour later...

Behind the dam.  The overflow.  Never seen it like this before.

Our road...

Another shot of the road.  Just crazy!!!

Overflow pipe working overtime and just not keeping up.

Another shot of our 'river'.

Me standing on our road on the dam.

Our house.  Looks pretty good considering what the pond and and dam.

The first year we lived in this house we got a ton of rain, that was the year it rained 33 days straight, but it was a steady rain, not 10 inches in a few hours.  Now it didn't rain that much here, but it is still alot of rain and they are expecting more.  If you want to see some incredible rescue scenes and something out of a movie check out some of the local news channels online.  www.newsok.com

Now off to pack the car and get out of here!

Man they are fast

It has been a busy week for me and with the house.  We have been busy this week with not only our normal everyday things, but we are having our church gospel meeting with youth activities during the day so we have been doing all that during the day and either working or going to church at night.  Today was the really the first time I have been able to go check out the house stuff this week and they are fast!  So far, they started with the footers Monday...

LOTS of cement.  In fact and cement truck got stuck in the off to the side where he had pushed some dirt over and had to call in the big guns...

Anyway, here they are pouring the cement

The guy in the shorts is Mark our leader.  He was out there ALL day with them from 7:00 am till dark and he was out there all day the next day and the next!  What a great guy he is.

I didn't get out there to take pictures of just the stem wall, which they did yesterday, but you can see them here and these pictures are kinda boring anyway.  They did the plumbing today.

So now it just looks like a concrete box sticking out of the ground and pipes through out.

Then I sat out on our porch and took in the air and view.  I can't wait!

The "porch" where I rested on for a while.

What's next?  Heat and air tomorrow, inspections, then sand (which you can kinda see a pile in the back of this picture), then they will pour the slab.

Woke up to storm clouds.

Well this morning we woke up to storm clouds and thought we were going to have to push gravel day back again, but it cleared up and it didn't even sprinkle here.  Our church is having a gospel meeting this week with kids activities in the afternoon.  When I went to leave this morning about 10:15 a man driving a truck pulling a tractor was pulling into our drive.  When I got home this afternoon we had one load of gravel and the man told me that they were going to be out there at 6:00 in the morning with a semi and if that would bother us.  I told him I didn't care what time they were out there as long as work was getting done.  And seeing as how my kids get up at 6:30 in the morning, not that big of a deal.  We are making progress.

Rain, rain, go away!!!

No gravel today, its raining again.  More delays again!  Go figure!  Only us.  And it was almost dried out, probably enough so that they could have come today.  Very frustrating!  The more delays the longer this is going to take.  Boooooo!!!!!!!!!!  Normally I love the rain, but can't there be a drought this year?!

The road that leads to our new life.

Here are some picture of the completed work.  Thought that putting all those pictures in one post might make it too long.  Not that having two seperate posts within a few minutes makes it different, but oh well.

The dam, completely gone... it looks way different, but so good.  I don't think I will miss the blackberry bushes at all.  We have plenty more, just need to make them more accessible.

The drive way goes around the trees and back behind those trees, hidden away.

The pad.  No extra dirt was needed to be brought in to level the area because "Dozer Guy" is awesome and used all that he cut down off the dam for the pad. (Read- no extra dirt=cheaper and we like cheaper)

Here is the pile of trees that were bulldozed down, including a mulberry tree that I didn't know what was till it was too late to save it.  Oh well.

Here is one giant tree...  Amazing what they can do...

Mark came by and got the deed so that he can get the building permits and said that someone would probably be out today or tomorrow to do a perk test(not 100% sure what that is or if thats how you spell it) but it has to do with the septic system.  If our soil perks then we can use the cheaper regular septic system.  If it does not then we will have to do the more expensive aerobic system.  After gravel comes the footing, so we are coming right along!  YEA!!!

Work begins!!!

So last week "Dozer Guy" came out and started working on the driveway and pad.  We were gone so I left the picture taking up to my mom and she did a great job.  Sending us updates and pictures of the progress on our phones while we were enjoying our small get away to Miami.  "Doze Guy" came out Friday morning,

worked all day and then continued Saturday and worked all day.  It is amazing how much work he got done in such a short time and he did a superior job.

He cut down the dam, A LOT...

And put in drainage pipes on both sides of the dam for overflow...

There he goes, over the dam, cutting it away and all those wonderful, nasty blackberry bushes.  We have a love/hate relationship with those blackberry bushes.  We love the blackberries, but hate the bushes.  The best and easiest bushes to get to on the property were right there on that dam.  That was very sad to see go.

And there he is back in the trees, making the pad for our wonderful house.

And the kids enjoying the show.  It doesn't show very well in this picture, but Mom said Andrew was fascinated with the dozer and watched it all morning the first day.  I wish we could have been there to see the pure joy in his eyes.  What could be more cool to a little boy than watching something as cool as that?!

He was done with all dirt work Saturday afternoon and said there was a truck set up to bring gravel Tuesday morning.  Well, what happened Sunday night through Monday afternoon.  Only something that would happen to us, or anyone who begins work on a new house and is depending on good weather.  Yup, thats right, it rained 3+ inches and made everything a huge muddy mess.  So much so that now gravel has to wait to come till Thursday or Friday this week.  But one good thing about the rain, it showed us that everything looks really great and works just like it is suppose to and draining in the right places, just wish we could have gotten the gravel on first.  We are now sending up prayers to the rain gods to hold off till next week or longer.  If they can get gravel down on the road, trucks can go across it rain or no rain.  I am just not sure what all they can do on the house if it does rain.