After much heartburn, we've finally recieved the permit for house! We went through many changes, additions, etc! We are super happy with the plans and are looking forward to starting on the house as soon as the garage is complete. Here is the final set of plans for all to see. Oh happy day!

Here are some pics of our garage as of yesterday. Slowly but surely we're getting there! A very special thanks goes out to Matt for weathering the heat with us on Saturday to get the trusses up! We couldn't have done it without you!

First catastrophe...

Everything was going so smoothly until our first garage wall fell. So sad! Russ and Matt were busy trying to get the wall up and it took a turn for the worst... Literally. The wall crashed on the backhoe, and broke several places. Oh well.



We learned something tonight - (that is the best way to look at it I guess) - we didn't have enough people helping and we shouldn't have built the wall so long. We will know for next time! At least no one got hurt in the process. Now looking back on the situation, it reminds me of a cartoon! You know when the wall falls down and the cartoon character is left there standing alone. Well, that is exactly what happened tonight!



Russ and Matt working hard!

Wall is almost finished and ready to go up!

Notice the wall isn't on the concrete anymore... It fell. :(

And broke into 3 pieces. Catastrophe 1 - Check.

After our trip to NOLA last weekend we've been working hard on our rafters for the garage. I know it doesn't seem like a whole lot but they took FOREVER to build! Beth's job was to hand cut all the connector pieces with the jigsaw... all 280 of them. Russ put together the rafters. Thanks to Mr. David, Brad, and Mr. Glen for their help. It went much faster with your help. We are blessed to have good friends and family to help out with this project.

NOLA Pics

NOLA June 2009

Here is a link to some of the NOLA pictures. Enjoy!
http://www2.snapfish.com/fbshareredirect/p=777161245208469620/l=2096177009/g=24410052/redirectURL=share/otsi=SALBBL/AlbumID=1101959009/a=24410052_24410052/usercomments=I_xqd%20like%20to%20share%20my%20Snapfish%20photos%20with%20you.%20Once%20you%20have%20checked%20out%20my%20photos%20you%20can%20order%20prints%20and%20upload%20your%20own%20photos%20to%20share./counttext=90%20photos/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish

We took a break from house building for a little trip to New Orleans to see our friends, Kristi and Dave, tie the knot. I have lots of pictures from our trip and will post some tomorrow here and probably put the album on facebook. We had a fabulous time in NOLA and loved spending time with old law school buddies. We miss them all so much! Hopefully we can continue the yearly reunions so we don't lose touch.

Must say that NOLA is certainly not my favorite US city, but good friends and good food made it extra special this time. Thanks to Kristi and Dave for including us in such a special weekend. We had a marvelous time!

Now it is back to work and building a house... When is our next vaca?

I swear it's not crooked.

What a weekend! We finished the shed in record time. It took 9 days to build. Thanks for all the help from Mr. David.

I must say, I am pretty impressed with our handy work.

I guess that means we're 1/3 of the way complete with the entire project. Yea right.

Before dark.
Russ working hard (with a head lamp!)

Here are some pictures of our shed as of tonight. We have all the siding almost finished on all 4 sides. We worked until 11:00 pm. We officially have no life outside of house building. We even have headlamps to see with. What nerds...

Lumber dude came today to inspect all the lumber we sawed for the house. Most of it passed! We were very happy about that. Thanks to R's dad for helping out ALL day!

Shed without roof.
Pouring the concrete for the garage.
More concrete!

Mr. David carrying a tree down Cypress Campground Rd!
Our mailbox!
Permit with first official code inspection. (We passed with flying colors!)
Light pole and service pole.
Garage foundation.

We closed on our home in Summerville. We are officially homeless and living with the Hilton's. God bless them for taking us in for the next year! We've poured the concrete for the shed and garage so far. The walls and roof are on the shed. Russ and I decided to start with the smallest building to practice our house building skills! We should be finished with the shed and working on the garage by the end of the weekend. I was planning on posting some pictures but I can't find the camera cord... Imagine that. Lumber inspector is coming tomorrow to inspect all the lumber we sawed for the house. Say a prayer that it passes inspection!