Christmas in May

Lets back up a bit... Christmas this year brought one big family present. One that was still being created by little Elves in Arizona and could not possibly fit under our tree. Instead, this present came in the form of pieces to a puzzle. Each girl received an envelope with puzzle pieces in it. They had to work together to piece together the picture of the mystery present.

They were thrilled to announce that a golf cart was being made for them and would be here by the time the weather warmed up and they could drive it around. After that....they forgot about it. Until YESTERDAY!

Finally! This guy was waiting for them in the garage when we got home from school and work. We got the call Friday that it was coming into town, but we were still at work an hour away. A friend of ours who had a cart on the same shipment offered to meet the driver and assist with the delivery. The delivery truck was too big to go down our street, so he parked the truck at a nearby shopping center and drove the cart to our house! They even parked it in the garage and charged it for us! By the time we got home Friday night, it was ready for a test drive! Things we quickly learned about the golf cart:

1.) The 'back up beep' is loud enough to inform the whole town that you intend to back up

2.) When trying to turn left, while your neighbor (who most likely does not speak English) is driving in the other lane, if you hit the horn instead of the blinker he'll think you are beeping at him and will stop. (Does anyone know how to say 'My bad' in Russian?)

3.) The blinker is too close to the horn. (see #2)

These ladies could not wait to take it for a spin.

In fact, one (and we won't call any names) didn't want to leave it to come inspect the progress on the new house...so we had to bribe her with other forms of transportation.

There was a steady buzz all day with trucks bringing loads and loads of dirt to fill in the foundation.

The next step will be for Block Guy to block up the hole where the tractors were going in and out and Electrician and Plumber to work their magic before the slab is poured.

My contractors...

Adventures in Texasville

There really is a place called Texasville and it is actually located here in Alabama. My Husband's parents have built a cabin out there in hopes to host family gatherings. His Grandpa Sam and Uncle Elmer owned the land and the original cabin that stood on that sight. After many years and some weather damage, the fireplace and chimney are all that remain of the old cabin.

My Father-in-law (and anyone that he could talk into helping) have built this cabin using most of the wood and beams from Uncle Elmer’s house in downtown Texasville after it was torn down. The other wood is rough sawn lumber from a nearby sawmill. This cabin has been quite the work-in-progress, but it is now finally ready to be filled with loved ones, good food, and lots of laughter.

Diva, Sister-in-Law, and Mimi made some last minute dinner preparations before the rest of the guests arrived for Grandpa's Birthday Extravaganza. (Earlier in the week, the girls had gone down with Mimi and Grandpa and caught plenty of catfish to cook for dinner.)

These stairs lead up to the loft overlooking the living room. The grandkids have claimed this as their very own play house complete with toys and books.

 

Before everyone arrived, we headed down to the pond to fish.

 

Sister-in-law needed a little bit of help from her youngest fisherman!

 

See, kids, you can have fun without TVs, Nintendo's, Wii's, and air conditioning...

(Well, they agreed to all but the air conditioning part!!)

After dinner Grandpa and his assistant opened presents.

The happy couple (whose only complaint of the night was the lack of hot water to the shower)

I think it is safe to say that Mimi and Grandpa had a wonderful time celebrating their hard work on the cabin and Grandpa's birthday. I know we all did!! The weekend also brought another fun surprise…but we’ve got to wait and tell the girls first.

More updates coming soon….

What lies beneath....

Yesterday afternoon we headed over to the lot to do a bit of cleaning up. The concrete trucks are coming today to block fill and there was wood and trash and broken blocks piled everywhere. The girls and I formed an assembly line to toss this pile of broken blocks away from the tree and into the porch area of the house.

Our method was working beautifully and we had over half of the pile moved in no time. Nothing too exciting about block moving, right...?

Pa-lease! Take a closer look and think again! As I lifted one of the larger blocks from the bottom of the stack, I thought I felt something a little different. I continued my part of the assembly line, but I happened to glance back over my shoulder.  Oh, nothing, just a hose...

But wait. It wasn't a hose. It was Satan's little hand puppet!

I had touched that thing!!! So I did what any other self respecting grown up would do...right there in the middle of the lot, I had a heart attack. I FREAKED OUT!  The girls were rather concerned by my sudden outburst of emotions and immediately came rushing over. My sweet husband, who heard all the commotion from the other side of the house, came to investigate...assuming of course that I was being overly dramatic about a little worm. This was NO worm! This was 6 feet of scaley, slithery, reptile! We tried to remember the rhyme: Red touches black-scratch him on the back. Yellow touches black....? WHAT HAPPENS THEN?!?!

Husband then called our across-the-street-friend/neighbor (who happens to be at the hospital with his wife today getting ready for the arrival of New Baby!!!) for back up. The guys returned with the proper snake-removal tools.  

Our little reptile friend was then mortally wounded by a garden implement.

Grandpa Adams always said that you should hang a snake up to make it rain. Who knows if there is truth in his old wives tale, but just in case we weren't taking any chances. In hopes for NO rain on our lot so that the builders may finish in a timely manner, we burried that little guy. Several times actually. He twitched his way out of his grave until finally deciding to stay buried. We all rejoiced.

**one reptile was harmed in the publishing of this post**

Please don't call PETA

Imagine that

Hi there! I feel that it has been a while and so much progress has been made! Come on in and let me show you around...These are the pictures taken from last Sunday.

Okay, so if I stand on the blocks you can actually see "inside" the house...

Imagine...a dining room with a girly fabulous chandelier, a laundry room painted in a bright and happy color, a kitchen and breakfast nook with a fun window seat, and a two car garage that I have been promised will actually house our cars!!

....a welcoming front porch with a place to sit and enjoy the cool breeze and sunset, a study to surf the internet work on class projects, a master bathroom with a clawfoot tub....

Eventually this space will be shaped into a kitchen window and my husband will make a beautiful stained glass window to go in it! I never know what his design will be, but I always love everything he makes.

On the other side of all of that block will be a delightful place to cool off on a muggy summer day...also known as the girls' favorite part of this house. The pool! Kick the imagination up a gear to imagine that this fluorescent orange outline is a pool. See the steps in front of you? The shallow sun bay on the right? Deep end on the left?

We're already anxious to dive in!!

Did somebody call a plumber?

We've moved the camera in order to get a closer (and more centered) look at the lot. Here is your sneak peek at the progress.

Putting the 'foot' in footers

Monday after work and school we drove over to check out the progress, and the concrete trucks were just pulling away when we got there. The fact that there is finally something over there for us to see makes us smile!

The footers were poured and that added another dimension to our current maze of house. We also realized that it will take a lot of blocks to reach from the ground to these (barely visable) strings stretched across the top!!

Someone also decided to show us exactly why they are called footers! She was a bit concerned at their ability to hold up a house if they couldn't even hold her up.

No worries. Fortunatly I was there to dig her out of our foundation!

What would they do without my mad tractor skills!?!?

 

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LOST comes on tonight, but before you tune in, get mentally prepared for the big occasion with a few words from Hurley. Seriously, dude.

Just for fun, I like to wear my numbers shirt on airplanes and then have my picture made in a pilot's hat.

If you are completely confused, grab the first Season 1 DVD...then call me if you aren't immediately addicted.

Let There Be Concrete

We were beside ourselves when we got the call from Foundation Guy that he was starting on Saturday. You know we were out there as soon as possible to check out the progress and take a few pictures to share.

This maze of dirt will one day be a front porch:

From this point of view I felt that it looked HUGE!!! And that's when I learned that the house will fit inside the wooden 'fence' area.

I am also learning all types of new lingo. Apparently the 'fence area' is called batter (badder?) boards.

**builders who just cringed while reading that, please let me know**

But wait! There's more!!! This is what is going on today!

Lets hear it for the Concrete Trucks!

(wish I could jump through and trim that tree)

And, just for fun, this is the Jasmine plant in our current back yard. It makes for heavenly aromatherapy while lounging in that hammock!

...then it took over the pine tree.

Amen.

Cribs

Yo, what up. I'm Polkadot and dis my crib.

I came from a school science lab, but now I stay in a 30 gal. in G's room

...this is cool since I'm the size of a penny.

At the top is my coral and below is my rock--that's where I sleep. That column has no purpose, but it look good. I had a castle and a dragon....but they got repo'd. The dragon left his flame. Sometimes at night, when G turns on the jams, I like to sing. I think I sound good...some think I sound like a cricket.

Word.