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.

The before...

So I finally got these pictures uploaded to the computer so I can finally put them on here.  Being a busy mom chasing after, cleaning up and feeding three little ones leave little time for small things as this.  But I now have some pictures of progress that I need to post, but thought it would be better to show where we came from first.  So lets begin...

This is from the road looking towards the trailer and some of the land.

Here is the other side of the property, facing the front of the trailer.

Here is our little pond.  This is from the yard we have now.  The house is planned to be on the other side of the pond with the front of the house facing the pond.

This is looking out towards the pond from where the house will be.  It doesn't look very good now cause this was before everything really greened up and everything is still grown up from winter.

This is looking at what is going to be the back yard. (going to be lots of work)

Looking toward the southwest corner of the property.  Rolling land.  Will probably have fruit trees and such over here.

This is looking north.  Open grassy area and then the trees line the creek bed leaving the pond.

This is the way we get around the place.  In a garden wagon.  Its quite the work out.

And this has been out lovely house for the past three years.  A single-wide, three bedroom, two bath trailer.  It is really not that bad of a place (especially now that the roof doesn't leak anymore), but with three small children the walls just keep closing in on us.  There is no room to run around inside.  We have tons of room outside as you can see, but on cold/rainy/or really hot days where we can't go outside we have lots of pent up energy that we have nowhere to release.  It has been a roof over our heads and it has given us the oppertunity to pay some debt off so we can afford out dream house and for that I am thankful for it, but we have paid our dues and it is time...

Papers signed... now lets get to building!

Finally after twice the amount of time this process should have taken, we signed our construction loan papers!!  I won't go into detail about why it took so long, but lets just say there were a few people that dropped the ball on a few things through out the ordeal, but it is done and over with and we can get started.  Mark, our contractor, came over yesterday to map out where the road will be and stake out where the house will be.  They are going to start next week and praying it stays dry long enough to get it going.  He said they should have the road and the pad done next week!  Loy and I will be gone next week.  Loy is going to Miami for work and I am going to tag along for a few days.  My mom is coming to keep the kids, she doesn't know it, but she is going to be photographer of the process for the first week.  I am super excited and hope that everything goes smoothly from here on out.  I doubt that is what will happen, but I hope.  If anyone has any words of advice or helpful tips, through them out there please as I am so new to this and have no idea what I am getting myself into.