Foundation Walls!

Last week after the footings were poured, the concrete guys came over to set the forms for the foundation walls and came the next day to pour the concrete for the foundation walls! It actually is starting to look like a house now and not just a big hole! Yay!

View of the kitchen/dining room/living room:

View of the garage and front of the house:

Street view (can you tell I don't get off work until it is dark!):

View of the great room in the basement and part of the back bedroom from the front bedroom (look at the gorgeous view of the mountains we'll have from our back windows!):

View of the cold storage (well the door to the cold storage), storage room (will be the room in front of the cold storage), and front bedroom (where the window is):

So the concrete walls are obviously just the basement walls. The main floor will be built on top of the concrete walls. We are a little worried about it being so high up (there is a seven foot difference between the height of the foundation walls from our east neighbor to our west neighbor), but we'll have to see how it looks once the dirt gets filled in against the foundation walls and the lot is leveled out. There are so many things to think about and plan for!

Tomorrow Matt and I will put in the window wells and tar the outside of the foundation walls so they can fill the dirt in the trenches around the house. Next week the plumber will come run all the pipes and we will have the concrete guys back to pour the foundation floor and garage floor!

Footings

I LOVE seeing our lot slowly turn into a house. It has also been really fun for me to get to know Matt's job a little better and have him teach me all the different things that have to happen in each step of building our house. This week we had the footings finished. They set up the forms on Tuesday, and poured the concrete on Wednesday. I HATE getting off work so late because by the time I run over to the lot, it is almost dark and all my pictures are way bad!

The garage will be on the left (which is not excavated) and you can see the forms for the exterior walls and cold storage on the right:

Garage (and kitchen behind the garage):

View of what will be the kitchen/dining room/family room:

 

 

Next up: FOUNDATION! Planned for Thursday, Friday and Saturday this week! Yay for progress!

The hole!

Yay! Yes, I took a picture of the hole! I am proud of it! I spent a lot of money on that hole! I am going to take as many pictures as I want to! You may notice Randy in this picture. He beat both Matt and I to the lot today to see the hole. I am just so happy that we are making progress, one project at a time. Next up: Building permits. Footings. Foundation. Rough plumbing....... and a million other things!

One step closer to a new place to live!

Veteran's Day

Last year, I got put on the Veteran's Day committee by default. I was new, and they needed another person. So I volunteered to run the CD player, and it went great. This year, I volunteered for the same duty, and it turned out to be so much more. I was able to invite my Grandpa Norton to come speak to the kids about his experiences in World War II and help them understand what Veteran's Day is all about.

My Grandpa did a great job! We had almost 600 kids and almost that many other guests come to the program. My Grandpa thought he would be speaking to just my class, so he was a little surprised when it was so many people! I did tell him! He just forgot! The kids sang a few patriotic songs and Grandpa spoke. There were many people later who went up to Grandpa to thank him for his stories and service. It was very moving. Many teachers told me how impressed they were by him and I agree! He is 92 years old, has 9 children, 47 grandchildren, and 115 great-grandchildren! People gasped aloud when I read this in his introduction. I was shaking so bad while I was reading his introduction! I think he was less nervous than I was!

I am so grateful for my Grandpa's service for our country. It is a good reminder every day about how much we owe to our military servicemen and women. He told me later how impressed he was by our kids and how much he enjoyed the experience. I think that I was more impressed by him, and enjoyed his speech more! Thank you Grandpa! I love you very much!

Scraping the Lot

No more weeds! Last week, the lot got scraped so we can dig the hole for the foundation! Matt and Todd went by after it got scraped and laid the house out so the excavator will know where to dig. The big pile of dirt on the back of the lot made the lot feel a lot smaller! Matt told me that they scraped up to three feet of the top in some places.

Now we're ready to dig!

Finally!!!!

We are finally getting started with our house! Yay! I have been shocked to see how many things you have to do before you can actually start building. And even more shocked that no one gives you any idea of what those things are until you are trying to do things and don't have everything you need! Ah!

For example, we are working on getting our building permits, and the city people said "Just take these over to the county and you'll be good to go!" So that's exactly what I did. I got a call the next day saying that I needed some paperwork from the heating company and I needed an engineer to go over our plans. Are you kidding me? Why didn't anyone tell me that I needed this stuff? So I frantically, on my lunch breaks over a few days, make phone calls and run paperwork to people so I can get everything we need. Then, on the day the county was supposed to be done with our permits, I get everything back to the county. Geez! That is just one example. I'm so glad that I am learning how to do everything so next time I will be prepared!

The good news is that our lot is paid for and we can get started! I finally got a chance to get over to the lot and take some pictures before we started working:

From the street (facing south):
The trees are the border of the Richmond cemetery

From the northeast corn of the lot:

From the northwest corner of the lot:

From the southwest corner of the lot:
I love our view looking down over the valley! There is a huge field behind us that won't be developed for a while (if at all!) so our views are not impeded by anything! It also makes our lot feel a lot bigger than it is!

From the southeast corner of the lot:
Gorgeous views of the mountains!

From the back of the lot (facing north):

There are houses on both sides of us (we are actually the last lot on our street) and the lot is 90 feet wide and 145 feet deep. There is a huge field behind our property (seriously, it's huge), and behind that is the cemetery. We love all the open space, but we still get the benefits of being in a subdivision. Sidewalks, neighbors, etc. I am soooo happy with our lot and can't wait to start building!

Sunday

Do I need words?

Look Who Plays for the Jazz!

Just sayin'.

Football Flashback

I have so many awesome pictures from my college days. One of those awesome weekends was when my family came up to Logan for a Utah State vs. BYU football game. My mom and grandma and papa are pretty big BYU fans (I have since converted them to the Aggie side unless BYU is playing). For some reason, Cassie did not want to be in any pictures this night... but ended up in almost all of them. I love looking through this series of pictures for the "Where's Waldo/Cassie" moment...

See her?

What about now?

Now?

Now?

Ultimate photo bomber! And that was before photo bombing was cool!

!

We tried to make her be in a picture on purpose and this is what she did...

Then this...

And this...

Enough. (Can you guess whose finger is picking Cassie's nose? Yes, Matt)

Love you Cas!

More 2008 football games! Natalie and I were living in the house in Hyde Park this year. Alex was a student at Utah State for this one semester too, which was sooooo fun! Those stories from those few months are some of my favorites because that was when we lived at the house, Matt and Alex were going to USU, and I was a senior and getting ready to graduate!

Nat and I made these awesome shirts! Everyone was so jealous!

Back in the days when Matt wore pink and did his hair every day...

Awesome matching shirts! I wore mine so much that it finally just fell apart completely.