Progress and what else...camping!

The work continues at a nice clip. Below you see the wall forms being built up. The rest of them are stacked up on the trailer in back.



With the exception of a few, here is the mostly completed wall.

Monty loves all of the construction action!

The concrete arrives as the guys finish bracing all the forms.

Unfortunately, it rained a little here over the weekend and the ground is a little wet. The concrete truck got a little stuck in the soft ground. But a little gravel thron under the tires and it was "unstuck" in no time!

Here comes the first concrete!

It took two trucks with seven yards each to finish the entire wall, but it got done in lightning speed!

Dean checking levels.

Taken from the girls' bedroom upstairs looking down.

In addition to the construction, we also went camping this weekend. Here the kids gather wood for kindling.

How many times do you think you'll ever see a Pre-K teacher in penguin pajamas chopping wood?? This is Sue, she happens to be Luci's UPK teacher, and we've been friends for more than 20 years now!

The kids decided they wanted to have their own campsite, so the moms (Julie, Sue and I) along with the kids grabbed all kinds of stuff from our campers and went to town. Here they are in the little pup tent. L to R, Jeb and Darien (Sue's), Drew, Hannah(Julie's) and Luci.

This how Ghostyville started.

But this is what we ended up with!

Here's Luci dancing away to my iPod tunes!

Extreme close-up of Darien! Isn't she a cutie?

And Jeb gave me his best Yeti face! (They played Yeti all weekend long!)

Sue with her Michael Jackson garden version glove, giving a rocking sign while Dean looks just like he's grabbing for her butt!

And it couldn't be a camping weekend without the requisite water-war!

Here's Ghostyville at night when you can see all the lights!

All in all, we had Jim and Julie, Dean and I, Sue and then Amy S. and seven kids total! The kids had a ball and the weather, for the most part cooperated waiting until bedtime to really pour!

We have footers!

At 7:20am this morning, the cement truck arrived!

Things are moving right along now. While this sets up today, this guy, Mike, will be re-pointing the old basement wall. Tomorrow, they'll set the Logix Blocks and we'll give the building inspector another call so we can finally pour basement walls! Yay! Exciting stuff! (For me, anyway!)

Never mind the sledge-hammers...bring on the shovels!

Now that demo is done, it's time to dig a hole! This guy on the Bobcat is digging out the old well.



But the Trac-Hoe is much more efficient and a whole lot faster!

One of the many dumptruck loads that were dumped out back.

Hey, check it out! It's a hole! Oooooo!

And here's the start of what will soon be footers.

Now that we have no kitchen, we've moved most of what we could into the dining room. We had to take our big dining room table and chairs out and put in a smaller kitchen table to make room for it all. This is not the first time we've done this. When we first bought the place ten years ago, we started out like this because we weren't sure if the kitchen would actually hold heavy appliances. But it did for all these years. But now, it's gone and I couldn't be happier about it! Of course we don't have a stove in here, we're making due in the camper for cooking. Hopefully it won't be too long before we can turn this back into strictly a dining room again!

Get out your sledge hammers, boys!!

What a weekend!! It has finally happened! I never thought it would, but it did! The back half of our house is G-O-N-E!! Below is Scott on the Bobcat getting ready.


Dean and Art on the roof. A few holes here and there to ease destruction...

Dean sawing through five layers of old shingles.

The first chains are hooked up.

And a pull from Scott in the Bobcat and it flops right over!

Dan, Tina and the kids showed up later. Dan helped out in back and Tina babysat the kids all day. (I had a wedding to shoot, so I had to leave for about 5 hours.)

Here's the first casualty, a nail in Art's boot.

I missed the following actions, but my dad captured them in pictures for me. Take note of the below picture. Dan, Art and Brandon are on the roof, Dean's under the roof and Scott is in the Bobcat...

The three guys are still on the roof, but Dean is now away from the action. If you look to the right of the picture, you'll see the roof pulling away from the house. If you look to the left, you'll see three guys starting to panic!

The roof gave way! Dan made it to the small part of the remaining roof, Brandon was hanging from the roof by his fingertips and Art rode the roof to the ground! In the picture, you can see Dean and Dan helping Brandon back up to the roof. I heard Scott's eyes were as big as saucers when it happened! I always miss the best stuff! Thankfully, everyone came away unscathed. Art's hand was sore for a bit, but I think it felt better later.

Scary bit passed, now they can laugh about it! Except maybe Brandon who looks visibly shaken!

Max wants in on this action!

A little later, Jim showed up to lend a hand. Here he is in front of the LAST remaining wall!

The third casualty...Brandon makes a valiant catch as Jim loses his balance!

Going....going....

GONE!

Here's the massive debris pile. One evening this week, we'll be touching her off...what a bonfire that'll be!

The youngest (and thinnest!) among them gets the grunt work! Brandon shimmies under the decking to attach another chain.

And another Bobcat yank...there goes the floor!

No more floor!

Ummm.....the steps were a bit dusty? Thanks Art!

Don't mess with Brandon and his sledge hammer!

The fourth casualty...Jim and Art were standing on the edge of this piece of floor so it stayed on the Bobcat. When they got to the pile, Jim jumped off before Art was ready and shot him into the air. Again, no injuries, but I missed the photo-op!

Now...they SAID they were trying to break the last bit of decking away, but every one of them had a big smile on their face while they were doing it! I wish I had gotten this on video, it was hilarious!

The next three pictures I just couldn't resist! When Dean concentrates really hard on something, he tends to make faces. Today was no exception!

For those who know my brother, the next pic needs no explanation. For those who don't, he was saying, "Check out my big, fat woody!"

Ok, who gave Brandon a Sawz-All and didn't show him how to use it? Check out my brother's expression!

It's a rodeo...construction-style!

Brandon in the Bobcat!

Tomorrow (Monday) we're supposed to get a Track-Hoe in to start digging the foundation hole. Once that's done, Scott's coming back to pur the footers. The lumber store delivered our Logix-blocks on Saturday, so we'll be ready for that part when needed. Dean optimistically thinks we'll have our foundation done by this weekend coming! Here's hoping!!