Pretty good week...

We got a ton done this week. The pictures don't really tell the whole story. Most of the work was putting up the interior walls, got the second floor down, and started on the upstairs walls. I've got to work in St. Louis this week so Leslie is going to be on her own next week and then I'm back and we should be able to get things ready to put the roof on Friday and Saturday. I have to admit that it will be nice to take a little break. We have been going at from 7:30 until dark 6 days a week for the last 3 weeks and Leslie and I are both worn out. It's been a long time since I've slept this good, except for the night's that the cramps in my hamstrings kick in, those are awesome!.

We also had a new addition this week. We have three mares that are with foal and one of them finally delivered. They are all a couple weeks overdue. Misty, who is our babysitter, had a little bay colt. Just what we were hoping for out of her. The pictures aren't great, we'll try to get some more posted soon. We should have two more babies in the next couple days, hopefully.

In other news. Bronson ran the 200 in the big Hershey track meet and won. He was pretty excited, however, while he was trying to figure out when he was supposed to take his turn in the long jump he missed the start of the 400 he was supposed to run and then while he was trying to figure out how he missed the 400 he missed his turn in the long jump. He was not a happy camper but the when he won the 200 he was back to being happy Bronson. I asked him how close the 2nd place finisher was and he told me that he kind of waited for him to catch up and then took off so it wasn't such a blowout. Also Kaitlin competed in the District track meet and set a new district record in the shot put. Beat the old record by a foot. It's kind of funny because there are these girls who are really into and do the whole psych yourself up and then the whole backwards, hop, hop, through thing and Kaitlin just kind to steps up there and takes one step and chucks it out there, 35 feet. Who would have thought?

Week 3....

Well we're starting week 3 of framing and we are going to have to pick up the pace. I'm supposed to go out on the road next week and I'd really like to have everything up to the trusses. We think we're going to hire a crew to come in and do that in a day or two because it's complicated and I don't want to die falling from the roof. Here are a few updated pic's. Note the big tall wall that is just under 18 ft. You should have seen Me, Leslie, Cooper, Kaitlin and Lil trying to stand that thing up. I'm certain we would have not gotten that thing up if it weren't for Jeff(the professional) directing traffic. We're pretty much moving on to interior walls downstairs and then the upstairs. Interior walls are going much faster than the exterior.

The End of an Era

This weekend was truly the end of an era. Ever since Leslie was a little girl she would spend every Saturday with her family at the Utah Livestock Auction in Spanish Fork buying or selling horses. When we moved here to Benjamin we continued the tradition. I think in the last five years we've bought at least 15 horses from them. It's great Saturday entertainment and there is a core group of people that are always there. Due, mostly to urban sprawl and the fact that STUPID PETA have made it illegal to slaughter horses for consumption, after over 50 years the auction has closed it's doors for good. We went over for the last time and visited with all the regulars and had our last Auction Burger, best burger in town, and watched the horses run through for the last time. I'm sure we'll have a few weeks worth of withdrawals on Saturdays, good thing we've got other things to occupy our time for the next 8 months to a year. We also got a ton of work done on the house this week. We were able to get the crawl space framed and the sub-floor on. Lessons learned: Things always take longer than you think, experience is way more valuable than reading a book, fire a few shots with the nail gun before starting a wall(ouch!), mistakes can always be fixed. Here are a few pictures of our progress. These were actually a couple days old I'll post some news ones tomorrow.