It Looks Like a House

We all went out to the land on Saturday evening before the Pioneer Day Broadcast. Zach was a bit reluctant - "How long are we going to be there?" "Are the workers going to be there too?" Only a short time - we have to be back to watch the broadcast, and no it is Saturday, a day off. So we all went out and it kind of caught everyone by surprise as to how much work has been done.


This is inside the garage. There are support boards all around in case a strong wind blows through and knocks everything down before all of the support in the house has been built. The kids thought it looked like an artful mess and wanted a picture of it.

Conner parked Todd here and he sat there in the hallway as we toured the house. Then Conner wanted me to take a picture of Todd and I invited Conner to be in the picture. We can actually walk through now and identify rooms and closets and such, so it is kind of fun.

Trusses

We went over Wednesday after swimming lessons and lunch and watched the trusses being put up. The kids were kind of bored. Zach took a nap in the back seat after reading his book for a while. Kylee, Kaitlin, and Conner walked down to the river and explored. Then we had a hard time finding them as Road 76 doesn't exactly go all the way to the river. We thought they might have walked to Chiawana Park as that is what Conner wanted to do, but we didn't find them there so we finally returned to our land and the kids were waiting for us there. They had walked back while we had driven to the park. Oh well. So here are some pictures I took that day.

All of the trusses come pre-built on a truck. The truck has a crane attachment that it uses to load a bundle of trusses to the top of the house. The construction workers then put them in place standing and walking along the top of the house as you will see in the next picture. I would be a nervous wreck walking up there on the beams and then hammer and saw while up there as well.


There goes the first truss.

The whole house is all trussed up. It goes a lot faster than you would imagine. I could stay all day every day and watch our house being built as I think it is fascinating. I wouldn't get anything done all day. When the sewer was being put in at the house we live in right now, the street was all dug up and pipes were laid, and we canceled our normal school day and sat in the front yard and watched. The workers would come over and visit with us periodically and tell us what was going on and we shared our ice cold lemonade with them. It was really a fun school day.

Not Much Time

I thought I would at least put out the latest pictures. We are busy getting ready for the 24th of July ward activity. This year we are BOO-HOO-ING as we once again aren't going to Memorial Pool. Last year we just skipped the ward activity and just went swimming anyway, but this year the activity committee assigned different groups to be in charge of a booth. High Priests have to create a forge and show how to blacksmith, so dad has gone and learned a few basics, but not many other high priests have volunteered to help him, so he may be stuck there the entire time. The Relief Society was asked to tie quilts so I am not sure how many sisters will be there to help, so I will need to check in and see how much I am needed after setting up stuff beforehand. So I may or may not be there the entire time, but I have made two quilt tops in the past two days, cutting the squares, figuring out a pattern, and then sewing them up. One even has a border. Zach and Kylee are supposed to help with the Mutual booth. Most of the mutual kids probably won't help, so they will probably be stuck there almost the whole time. Their booth is where people can put on old-fashioned clothes and have their pictures taken. Then Kaitlin was asked to help with the Primary booth, which is fishing, where you throw the fishing pole over a wall and get a prize. So... Dad was going to invite someone, but decided it would be hard to hang out with your guest if you are having to work a booth the whole time - so there goes that missionary opportunity.


This is the back of the house.

This is a side view of the house, from the Moon's side.

This is the front of the house, with the garage all cemented in and inside walls beginning to be built.

Ken just called and said they are putting the trusses on this afternoon, so we will go over and watch that and then I will have to post some more pictures.

One Wall

We have one wall. Granted it is only a garage wall, but one wall nevertheless.

We Are Above Ground!

Kylee, Kaitlin, Conner and I went out to the land on Thursday afternoon. We invited Zach to join us and he declined saying he didn't want to go out very often so that each time he goes out he is surprised at the changes. So here are a few pictures.

The framing has just begun. Only the front has been framed as you can see from this inside shot.
The kids looking through a front bedroom window. They wanted to climb in through the windows but I didn't want them banging anything around so I made them go through the front door.

Floors

When we went out to the house yesterday, one of the workers was out there with his two grandson's. He says he has them help him every summer so they will know how important it is to do well in high school and go on to college. The boys agreed that construction work is hard and hot work.

I guess the basement is nice and cool now, with the floor above it all in. The stair well frame is in but no stairs yet.

Hopefully more pictures tomorrow. We wanted to go out tonight, but Brad is fixing someone's roof tonight, Erin is in charge of the Young Adult book group, and Zach and Kylee are at Mutual. So we will wait until tomorrow to go take a look. We are all real excited!

Walls But No Ceiling

I was talking to Michael the other day and he said that Conner had told him via this that our house had walls but no ceiling. So Michael was a bit confused thinking that the house was farther along than the blog shows. Conner just meant basement walls and there wasn't anything overhead so of course there isn't a ceiling. While Erin was climbing out of the basement, she said that it sure "seems weird to climb up to get out." Our builder chastised us this past week when he asked if we had been out to see what was going on and we had told him we hadn't been out the entire week. He said they have done tons of stuff and that we should be out there every day taking pictures as it is at this point that the changes are noticeable, whereas later, it will seem like nothing is getting done as the little pieces that complete the house are time consuming. So I guess we will do better.
Do you remember the last of our mountains that I showed last time? Well here is the same picture with Conner on top and then one with Conner and Zach playing King of the Hill. Zach told Conner that he was the king since he is the tallest and closer to to the top of the hill, so Conner would have to be queen. That didn't make him happy. Conner isn't happy about that role when we play the card game Scum either. He always wants to be King.


This first picture is taken from the front of the house. The next few pictures are from down inside the basement.






This is the family standing in the stairwell down in the basement. Zach informed us that everyone must stand in height order - note that he is standing the farthest back.

So the framing of the basement is done. They also are working on the ceiling of the basement, or the floor of the house, whichever you prefer to call it. The far right corner of the picture shows where the floor is and we can look over it into the basement.


The family sitting on the edge of the front of the house, about where the front porch will be, and Conner, under the sawhorse. I guess I will have to go out more often since soon we will be able to see something above ground level I would imagine. Sorry this was so long.

No More Mountains

We went out to see how it was going with our house and the kids were disappointed. All of the mountains of dirt they have been climbing on each trip are now gone. They have always loved climbing the mountains of sand and dirt whenever we go to Payette, Idaho to visit Grandma and Grandpa Anderson, and here we had our own piles. What a disappointment! The picture was taken right before you enter the actual circle of the court with our land being the one slightly to the left of the porta-potty.


This is the only mountain left, and it is slightly higher than my knee.


Here is a picture of the basement. Brother Bassett poured the floor. Our builder prefers to not use sub-contractors that he in unfamiliar with, but we asked them to allow Brother Bassett to bid on it, and he had a better bid than what Ken's guys were able to give. So, even though Ken was still leery about using an unknown, he went ahead and did it anyway. And Ken was very impressed. He said the work was very well done, and in a timely manner, and that Brother Bassett was pleasant to work with. All-in-all, Ken was very impressed. I knew he would be. I had seen Brother Bassett's work from a few years ago and thought it was very well done then too. Here is one more picture of our basement. There are four window wells, two on the south side and two on the west side, the Moon's side.


And just a tid-bit for you - the Moon's have sold their house, so as soon as they get a houseplan, perhaps we will have new neighbors. Our house is almost ready to put up for sale. Dad still has the two bathrooms to paint, and we have the carpet to clean. We also have to wait for all of the curtains to come back from the dry cleaners. Then I think we are done. We cleaned out Kylee and Kaitlin's room - you all know how they think being messy is organized... As soon as we were done, Kylee says, "There is nothing left in here to make a mess with." Tomorrow when it is light and no one is sleeping in there, I will take a picture of it. I hope you don't have a heart attack. I know it will be close though.

Paint and More Paint

I guess we are finally getting serious about moving. Brad took a few days off from work to paint the inside of the house. He painted Friday, Saturday, and today. He will paint tomorrow and on Wednesday. I don't think he will be finished then, but most of the house will be done. Probably only the bathrooms, computer room and storage room left, and I am not sure if we are doing those last two rooms at all. No pictures to show you - too embarrassing.

This morning we had all of our bedroom furniture in the living room, plus the living room furniture pulled out into the middle of the room, the laundry, the extra laundry Erin decided to do late Saturday night, and Conner's toys and books, all in the living room. We had just waken up Conner so he and Kaitlin could go to swimming lessons so he was running around the house looking for his swimming suit, his goggles, and dancing around as he needed to go to the bathroom, so he is also yelling and holding as he is running. Erin was running around trying to get ready to go to work as she had to catch the bus soon, Brad had started painting the edges in the kitchen and living room, Zach was trying to get ready to go work out at the gym at Columbia Basin College, I was trying to gather up some food for Conner to eat for breakfast in the car and eat my own breakfast and talk on the phone about some Relief Society stuff, Kaitlin and Kylee are trying to gather up their swim suits and school books so they can go to swimming lessons too - and the doorbell rings. It is the Cable guy (actually we don't have cable, we have a satellite dish that hasn't been working for the past week and a half, they were scheduled to come this afternoon, but showed up at 8:30 AM instead. I can just imagine what was in his head when he saw the disaster in the living room and all the people running around and looking for the remote now too, and just the craziness of it all. It reminded me of the first Home Alone show before they all left on vacation and the pizza guy and policeman/bad guy were trying to talk to some adults who lived there. How embarrassing! I always feel really good about life when I have a clean spot in the house. And no where qualifies. We have curtains that need to go to the dry cleaners and boxes to go to the storage unit in the family room too. I guess I will just have to sleep in the tub since there isn't tons of junk in the bathroom right now. I am sure the Cable guys went home and told his wife about the crazy house he went to today and just shook his head in amazement. Oh well. In a few days we will be back to normal, I hope.