Just got back from an awesome weekend at my parent's cottage with family and friends. We had so much fun and the weather was almost perfect the entire time. Jeff does have to go back on Tuesday to pop down the camper because we had some serious thunderboomers go through last night, but we all ate and swam and laughed and talked....

Anyway, we stopped at the house on Friday before we left not expecting to see any progress and we were surprised to see that the workers had already taken the forms off the basement walls and also put in insulation on the outside parts of the house. They also added gravel all around the walls and on the floor of the basement. Very cool! On our way home on Sunday we stopped to get our mail and saw that the electrician had been there to install the main breaker box inside and the meter on the outside of the western wall of the house. Let there be light!!

This week we expect more installations that use pipes and wires, then also the basement floor. Then the framing! We could be totally wrong though, because until the framing is done, weather is a deciding factor for how much and what gets finished. This week there is a chance for showers every day, so hopefully most of it missed us.

Only 6 more days of work! Inventory and textbook collection for me and finals for Jeff, and then we can stalk the house full time. Ahem, I mean go to the park with the kids everyday with a few short neighborhood walks.

Walls are poured

The basement walls are poured. We thought the builders told us that the cement truck would be coming on Friday to pour the walls but when we went to check out the house after school today, the forms are full of cement. I'm not sure when they are supposed to take the forms off, but I do know that the walls need to cure for a few days. Timing is perfect since it's Memorial Day Weekend, and the weather is supposed to be great. Next week, they pour the basement, then backfill around the foundation, then start framing. Well that might be more than a week's worth of work. We will get a schedule as soon as the framing is done, so we are just guessing right now.

We also locked in a great rate for our mortgage. If you haven't refinanced lately, you might want to look into it. Rates are below 5%!

Here's the latest video of the filled in forms. Have a great weekend!

Basement wall forms are in!

Major action today...the basement wall forms were put into place. Nothing was there when we drove by this morning, but I went by the house about 10:30. The forms were already unloaded off the truck and 3 guys were busy putting them in place. Luckily it was not as hot today as in past days but I still felt bad for them working in the hot sun in a big hole in the ground. It looks awesome though, very big!

I ended up staying later at work (found out that my library is getting wireless this summer, Oh yeah!) and then took the boys to see the house. I was out taking a couple more pictures and the woman next door came out. Turns out that Spencer's best friend from daycare lives there, so I got the boys out of the truck. As soon as Spencer saw his friend, he took off and ran in their house, Carson following as fast as he could. We stayed for about 30 minutes and chatted while the boys played. Jeff came and videotaped the basement while we were in the neigbor's house. As we were leaving, we met the neigbor who lives across the street, and they have a little boy Carson's age. Plus there is another little boy Carson's age that lives 2 houses down and 3 more kids down the street a little that are also in Spencer's preschool class. This is going to be such a fun neighborhood for the boys! We're pretty excited too. Everyone has been so friendly and welcoming as we stalk the house with our cameras every day.

The last few pictures on today's video are of the boys playing on the beach at our condo right before bedtime tonight. I will give a picture tour of the condo sometime soon. Don't worry, it won't take long, this place is cute, but very tiny!

We hear the cement truck will be coming on Friday to pour the basement walls. Then the cement will cure over the weekend and sometime next week they will backfill around the walls and then begin to frame the house. Meanwhile we will try to figure out where we will live in July. Cottage in Iola or camper at Bayshore Park, what do you think?

No Obama money, boo hoo

Nothing physical done to the house today, the footings are curing. The wall molds should be set up in the next day or two and the basement poured before the weekend.

The information we did find out for sure today was that the house will not be done by June 30th. We kind of figured that but hadn't heard it officially yet. While we are very sad we won't get the $6500 tax credit and we will need to find a place to live for the first couple weeks in July, we are kind of relieved in a way. The builder doesn't need to feel the pressure to rush the job and perhaps sacrifice quality (though we trust our builder and don't think they would let that happen). It also may have been fate to close the house in July since I will be at a tech conference in Denver the last week of June anyway. So poor Jeff would have had to move him and the kids out of the condo and into the house while I was gone. Now we will probably just move to the cottage for those couple weeks. That is if it's ok with Oma and Opa.

The big picture is that we get to move into our brand new house well before school starts in the fall and Spencer will start 4K at Red Smith. Speaking of school, only 9 days left this year! Whoo hoo!

Stay tuned for another house video in the next couple days!

Footings are in...so what does that mean?

Today the footings went in...basically that means that a big path of cement was laid along the rim of the hole/basement, and also around the garage space. I guess that the builder had to dig a lot deeper because our lot is made up of fill, and the footings to go into soil not fill. I'm not really sure what that all means, you'll have to ask Jeff, but I think they dug down a lot farther around the garage than they were hoping for. Probably means more cost for us.

I guess the footings will need to cure for a bunch of days, so there may not be any more action on our lot this week. I wasn't able to sneak out during lunch today, Mondays and Tuesdays are crazy with elementary classroom checkouts. So unfortunately I missed the cement truck. Bummer! The digger was gone at the end of the day too, Spencer was very concerned about where it went. Let's hope he gets a chance to see the cement truck when it comes back to pour the basement walls. Also here the latest pictures of the "house" taken mostly today. We did go to Chicago for the weekend so there are a also couple pictures of the boys playing in the driveway. Grandma and Grandpa were cleaning out the attic and found a cute little pull toy train and the boys loved it. They walked around with that thing for hours!

Day 2: More Digging and Sewer Install

The boys and I passed the house of course this morning. In fact, promising to go see the digger is what got Spencer out of the house. We talked about it the entire ride down to Green Bay. The big pile of dirt and the hole and his new friend and his new friend's sandbox. The ride went really fast as I listed to the chatter in the back seat. At the lot, the digger did not disappoint.

The digger man was already busy at it at 7:05 am and was scraping the area that looks like it will be our driveway. I went back to take more pictures during lunch and discovered he was actually digging a big long trench for the sewer pipe. Pretty cool! I was not able to go take end of the day pictures because I had a late meeting, but Jeff was able to take some video for all you dedicated house watchers.

While Jeff was there taking video, he also talked to the digger man who said that they were worried that there might have been water at the bottom of the big trench. If there was, it would have delayed them because the water would have to be pumped out. From the looks of it, no delay was needed. There is still a fleeting hope that the house will be done by June 30th so we can get the Obama tax credit!

There is one problem so far already though. Apparently our lot is full of fill instead of soil, so they are going to have to put the footings lower to get to the soil, which will increase the cost and be a small delay. I'm not sure exactly what effect it will have on us overall, but I hope the delay is not long.

Here are the pictures I took today. Tomorrow they pour the basement!

Finally! Day 1: The Digger is Digging!!!!

The digging has finally begun. The boys and I stopped by to see the digger this morning on the way in to work and we saw the first scoop being dug out of the ground for our house. I also stopped by during lunch to see the progress. Here is a short slideshow of today's work.



After I picked up the boys from daycare, we stopped by to see the hole. The next door neighbors came home and we ended up visiting for a short time in their backyard. They have a little boy about Spencer's age, so the three boys played in their sandbox and in our playhouse which is right on the corner of our lot. The mom and I spent much of the time trying to keep the boys off the big mountain of dirt. The kids are going to have so much fun once we move in, there are so many kids their ages living on our street.

What do you think? Pretty cool, huh?

Closing date is May 14th

We finally have an official closing date. May 14th is coming up soon!