And So It Begins

This past week has been one of excitement, hard work, frustration, and great change! We were originally suppose to vacation in Oregon with family (which ended up being cancelled due to our finances), so Kenn and I had the week off from work. All that free time was a very good thing because during that time we packed up our whole house to put in a storage unit, and moved into my parents house (the Lalliss'). We also had to dig up our beloved tree and move a massive swingset prior to the demolition of our backyard.



Here we are digging up our tree and making a mess of everything. Even Tazer got into the action (and loved every minute of it).
















This swingset came with the house 7 years ago. After much work, bruises, and a little cursing, it now has a new home in my dad's garden.




My parents have welcomed us with open arms, but to put it nicely- they are very much pack rats. In addition to cleaning up our house, we have also been working on dejunking theirs. Kenn and I have our own room, but right now the 4 kids are crammed into one room (and sharing beds). It is not ideal, but hopefully it will only be temporary until more space can be worked out.

That has been the frustrating part, but now to the exciting part- the construction has begun and is already ahead of schedule by almost 2 weeks! Besides our backyard being a total war zone, we now have the hole dug for the new addition, with the basement footings poured. We just got the good news that the foundation is being poured today!


This is Dave destroying our backyard (he was so awesome with the backhoe- Kenn joked that he could probable stack plates with that thing, but I think he really could if he tried).








Kenn is surveying all the destruction. We were very glad that we paid them to rip up all the bushes and cement- it only took the construction crew about an hour, whereas it would have taken us days, if not weeks to finish that project.





This pile of dirt is now our backyard. The kids have a blast playing in it and finding buried "treasures".





Here is the hole for our new addition. Ready and waiting for cement to be poured (luckily we didn't have to wait long)!









This is the machine that delivered the cement for the footings, and later the addition walls. It had a big long pole that piped the cement over the roof and into the forms.



Both the machines were very big and left dents in the lawn (hopefully it didn't affect the sprinkling system). They also broke up the sidewalk on accident due to the shear weight- the company has assured us they will fix the broken sidewalk, after all they know some cement people.












This is the footings for the new addition.











And these pictures are the foundation walls being poured for our new house.














The walls need to sit for the next week to fully dry. Next step is the framing of the new addition, and roofing (which Kenn and I will be doing), and then they will be starting on demolition in the existing house. So far we have been very impressed with our contractor and his crew, and have nothing but rave reviews for his work!

Other changes in our lives include school starting next week. Jacob was accepted into the spectrum program (a program for gifted students), so he will be going to Centerville Elementary instead of Tolman Elementary with Alexa and Luke.

One last change includes my brother Eric moving in with all of us next week into the already overstuffed house. Yup, that means nine people, 2 dogs, and a whole lot of stuff from various family members into one tiny house. I have a feeling it will be like a frat party every night around here. But hey, what doesn't kill us will only makes us stronger. Besides all this togetherness will only make me appreciate my new big house even more (too bad it will be another 4-6 months before I will be back in my own place).

Wish us luck on this journey, and I will keep you posted on all the changes.