Our Second Groundbreaking

The kids have been bugging me about not posting any pictures of the progress of our house. So this post will be mostly pictures. If I just knew how to do a slide show and had a playlist (don't know how to do that either)...
On our first groundbreaking this is what was used to break ground:


Now our second groundbreaking a little bit bigger tool was used:



I really should call it a "Snort" as Are You My Mother has always been one of our favorite books, and this really was a snort. We all went out to watch the first moment of breaking ground and then went back again later to see the results of the snorts work. Some of the dirt was taken away by an old co-worker of Brad's, back when he worked for Boeing. So that was kind of funny.


This was taken just down the street from our house on Jacobs Lane.



Zach didn't come back with us because we aren't really building a house, just a big hole to eventually fill in and say April Fool's to him. He knows we aren't really doing this. The family is standing in the big hole that will someday be our basement.


This one gives a little bit more detail as to the deepness of the hole compared to where the main level is. Does that make sense?


There was a dirt ramp that we were able to walk down into the hole from the west side of the house - the side where the Moon's house will eventually be. The sprinklers were going on the top of one of the mounds of dirt that hit this dirt ramp so the timing of running up and down into the basement hole had to be just so or get soaked!


King of the Hill - or the dirt mound - or whatever!


In case the construction workers decide to dig or build on the Moon's lot - our builder made sure there was an arrow. Still people have called me and said they can't find our place on the map - doesn't help that there isn't a street sign either.


I found this picture to be hilarious. When my family lived in Greece, we watched an apartment building being built down the street from our house. The Greek construction workers came to pour cement and they used equipment like in the above picture. We thought it was so silly that they had the cement go from the cement truck parked next to this funny truck with the long hoses waaaaaay up to the top of the hose and then down the hose and into the spot the wanted the cement to be. It seemed like such a waste of time and energy to have the cement have to travel so far when it only needed to go a matter of a few feet from the cement truck in the first place. Then when I drove out to our house and saw this truck and found out how it really worked I laughed about what idiots we had been back many years ago. If the trucks get too close to the hole to pour cement, they will cause the hole to cave in. And sometimes pouring cement has to be far away from the cement truck and the hose and arm of the second truck can extend a great distance to reach and pour the cement. The things we learn...


They are loading up the hoses and getting ready to pour the cement.


Here they are pouring the cement into the molds. Then they smooth out the cement, check for air pockets, add metal rebar and then let it set. This is one of the most important parts of building a house. The whole house sits on the foundation and cornerstones. If I could I would play the Primary song The Wise Man and the Foolish Man, but oh well...