Latest Goings on....

Well it's been a pretty busy couple of weeks. Leslie and the three younger kids made a trip up to Salmon, Montana with Grandma and Grandpa Allred last weekend. They were going up because Leslie's sister Lena had a mule and horse she was selling at a big sale so Leslie thought they'd tag along because there was also a visit planned with one of Leslie cousin's who she has not seen for a long time who lives in Darby, Montana. I opted to stay home with Cooper and Kaitlin for reason which did not become apparant until after they got home and gave us a detailed trip report. Let's just say that things were a little crowded and leave it at that. As you can see from the photo here Addison had lots of fun. Any chance she gets to put her butt in a saddle she has fun. She's become quite the little rider. Even likes it when she gets dumped, which doesn't happen often, becuase it adds to her legitmacy as a cowgirl.

This weekend was the Benjamin Stock show. Kaitlin has a sheep that she showed along with a bunch of other kids. This stock show is kind of the warm up for the Spanish Fork Stock show where all the 4-h kids bring their livestock to show and sale. Kaitlin had a lot of fun as you can see. Her sheep was invited back with about six others for final viewing for Grand Champion. She didn't win it but her friend did and Kait was pretty excited for her. This picture illustrates why Kailey's sheep was the Grand Champion and Kaitlin's was not. With sheep it's all about the butt. The bigger the butt, the more to eat. Yes in 4-h they have these kids raise these animals, make them real pretty to show-off and then they sell them to someone who is going to butcher them and eat them. It's like the anti-PETA organization and I personally think it's great.

Yesterday we ordered the concrete to poor in the crawlspace. We had some really great neighbors volunteer to help. That is hard work. I want to say that I gained a new respect for guys that do concrete work for a living but it's difficult for me to respect someone that does something that hard for as little as they get and not find something else to do. Maybe it get's easier the more you do it. I'm pretty sure I don't want to find out. But we got it done and now we'll get some lumber delivered and get started on the framing.....

Foundation wall....

The forms were pulled off the foundation wall yesterday. We spent the day today cleaning up. Our neighbor, the contractor, hates a messy work site so we've been very vigilant about keeping the place cleaned up since he drives passed the house several times a day. The kids and the dogs have been having lots of fun playing on the wall and all the piles of dirt that are all over the place. We had to leave a hole in the wall for the plumbing out to the septic tank. Izzy could make it in and out, no problem, Jez and Chloe not so much. Too fat. Next step is to pour the floor in the crawlspace. We'll do that next week and then we'll start framing.

Footing Formed and Poored....

Foundation guys were here yesterday and got the foundation formed. You'll notice from the picture that the footing sits pretty close to the original grade. We only dug down 4 inches. The footing is 10" so it's 6" above grade. The wall will be 3' 6" so if my math is right the top of the foundation wall will be 4' above grade. Add another 10" for the sub-floor and you might be thinking that our front door will be 4' 10" above the original grade. You be right! We will be bringing in lots of dirt. They poured the footing today and will be back on Monday to form and poor the wall.

As a side note to those of you who may be interested. Leslie's truck is back and it looks brand new. Better than when we loaned to Leslie's sister. They fixed stuff we forgot was broken. One of these days I'll post the before and after, but for now it's still too painful for Leslie to see.

We drove up to salt lake today to pick up a door from an old bungalow some guy remodeled. Leslie wants it for her laundry room door. We have totally become classified add hounds. I check the online classified, two, sometimes three, times a day. We've found some pretty good deals. Of course we had to walk through IKEA on the way home. I can do without that store, there are no windows in that place.

The fun begins....

We have the permit from the county, only after handing over a large check. Our favorite fee was the $50 we had to pay so we could continue living in our house while we built. As you can see from the photo excavation is done and ready for the footings to be formed. We've already been faced with decisions that we never really thought much about. Like how deep to dig the footing and how tall the foundation wall is going to be. Which apparently is pretty important around here. A family in our ward just moved into thier house in time for the spring runnoff. They've had to dig trenches to keep the water out of their house. Good thing our neighbor is an excavation guy or we might have ended up with the house looking like it was in a hole. We're getting most of our bids back and things are looking pretty positive. Most people we talk to tell us that our timing was perfect. We sold at the right time and are building at the right time. There are warehouses full of lumber and nobody is buying it. Hopefully the trend will continue for just a little while longer.