Building: Week 11

No more skeletons in our house. Last Thursday all our drywall was installed. IN ONE DAY! It usually takes a few days to do the entire house but because there is so little work for construction in Payson the drywall company had plenty of people to install the drywall. It was such a weird feeling to walk in to the house through the garage door and not be able to see all the way to the back of the house. I was a little disoriented at first. It looks so different with the walls up. After the disorientation wore off my excitement grew leaps and bounds because it looks more like a house now on the inside too.

This is one of the kid's rooms.

This is the half wall around the stairs being prepped for rounded corners. In the back is the master bedroom.

This is the entry area looking out from the living room.

This is the kitchen with pantry.

This is the family/dining room.

Here is the inside of the garage. Just a note about this door going from the garage out to the yard...it was a HUGE pain to install. CJ worked for 3 hours one day prepping the doorway that had many problems, then it took me 2 1/2 hours the next day to hang the door...with the help of the Supervisor. He said that this was the worst door to install in the history of doors. It's such a good thing that the drywall covers all the problems that we had with the door.

Lest anyone think that I don't do any real work on the build, CJ got a picture of me using a power tool.

Power tools have been my struggle in this project. I especially hate the nail gun. I have a real fear of impaling someone with a nail (or worse, many nails). I tried to avoid jobs that needed power tools as much as possible. The supervisor decided that I needed to get over my fears so he has made it his mission to make sure that I get jobs using all the tools. I am getting better at using the tools. They are still scary but I am not letting the fear get the best of me. The only thing I won't ever be able to do is attach or un-attach the air guns. There is a fear there that goes waaaay to deep. It is just like popping a balloon and I absolutely can't do that...but that's another story. Anyway, we usually get some BYU students from the Early Education department come to volunteer on our project. They need volunteer hours and we need little things done so that we can focus on the major stuff. This Saturday was a big surprise though. We got twice the number of volunteers from the EE department and another large group of Construction Management Supervisor students as well. We probably had 40 volunteers on Saturday.

All but one of the people in this pic are volunteers and this is only half the volunteers. The CMS students are on the roof and the EE students are laying out the trusses. This is major work that needed to be done and it was great to have their help. The trusses had to be layed out because we had the crane coming to set the trusses on the roof of the fourth house that afternoon and we still had lots to do before the crane came. The crane got there and CJ came up to me and asked if I wanted to be a "hooker" today. You can imagine the confusion on my face because he was totally serious. I made a few jokes before he told me what the job of the hooker is (and it has nothing to do with walking the streets. lol) The hooker is the person that hooks the trusses to the crane to be lifted on the house. I accepted the job and went to work as a hooker. Being that I was the first female hooker on the build CJ is now known as my pimp. We had a long day on Saturday but it was fun as well and there was a lot of work accomplished.

Fun with ice cream

We had ice cream cones this week following Family Home Evening. I put a small amount of ice cream in Megan's cone and let her eat it all on her own (my OCD usually won't allow me to let her get messy but I guess it was okay this time.) It was fun watching her try to lick the ice cream out of the cone.

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She went to share with Dakota and must have thought Dakota took too much because she decided to share just a tiny amount after that.

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Look at Megan's mouth as she shows her sisters how to open their mouths so that she can put the ice cream in.

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We had a good time and lots of laughs that night. I hope I can learn how to let messes happen more often.

Building: Week 10

Well, we are one more week down. Actually, after this week we will have passed the half way point in the framing part of the build (framing is 1/3 of the total build.) This is good news, but I am having a hard time keeping optimistic. It just feels like the closer we get to the end the farther away it becomes. Sometimes it feels like all the walls are closing in and there will be no end and it gets so hard to breathe. CJ is doing so well on the outside but I think that he is starting to get tired. I wish he could take a few days off to recuperate but it just isn't possible. The girls and I pray for him everyday and we are so grateful for the answers to those prayers. I try to go out and build on Tuesdays so that he can stay home and rest but I haven't been able to go out every week so I just don't feel that I am doing enough to help him. Please don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. We knew this was going to be hard work and a long process. We know that it will be worth it and are still very grateful for this wonderful opportunity. It is a great blessing in our lives and I am so thankful for the blessings we have received and continue to receive. I will admit though that I am starting to become weak to Satan's power and the feeling that this project is just too big and that it is so overwhelming that we should just give up. I have been praying for peace and strength but I am just one person. I think that I need to ask for help with prayers. I would just ask that anyone who would like to, please include us in your prayers so that we can continue to endure this process. Thank you so much for all your support.
Sorry, enough with the self-pity. Here is the progress over the last week.
The house is now insulated. Well, the living half anyway.
The attic will probably be insulated after the drywall goes in. Which brings us to the next thing. Our drywall was delivered as well.



It should be put up sometime this week or next. We have to have a city inspection for the insulation and an Energy Star inspection as well before the drywall goes up. Our walls will start to fill out soon and no longer be just a skeleton.
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We had our first big incident at the build on Saturday. We were putting the trusses (skeleton roof) on the third house. These trusses are the largest ones we've had so far. They are the entire length of the house, from the back all the way to the end of the porch. Those who already knew how to put up trusses decided they didn't want to do it this time so we had a whole new group putting them up...including CJ. The first truss went in and everything seemed to be fine. It is the heaviest one because it is already sheeted. Then the crane lifted up three more to be installed. CJ was inside them putting braces in so that they would be sturdy while two others were nailing them into the walls to secure them. Everything seemed to be going well so the crane brought up the next four trusses and the group moved inside those to secure them. They were only in those trusses for about 3 minutes when I heard what sounded like a crack of thunder. I looked up and saw the trusses begin to fall off the house. My first thoughts were of CJ. I said a quick prayer in my heart that he would be kept safe. It all happened so quickly. Those in the trusses had no time to react. They were lucky that they did not fall. They were safe because the four trusses they were in were still being held by the crane and they hadn't been attached to the other trusses yet. I ran to the window and looked out to make sure that no one was hurt by the trusses that hit the ground. If anyone had been under them they could have been killed because these trusses are extremely heavy. It was very scary.
(The one in the middle is CJ.)

After the initial shock was over the trusses were lifted back up and put back in place (with many more supports this time.) The supervisor told us that because of the reason the trusses fell it was a miracle that they stayed on the roof as long as they did. He said that those in the roof were blessed and protected by God, because if the trusses had fallen a few minutes earlier or a few minutes later everyone in the trusses would have gone down with them and been badly hurt...and because of CJ's position he would have gotten the worst of it. The trusses fell at exactly the safest time that they could have fallen. We pray for CJ's safety every day and I believe that those prayers were answered and Angels were working very hard to hold those trusses up until everyone was safe.

Building: Week 9

This was a slow week for our house. The biggest thing that happened was our four-way inspection. That's when the city of Payson and Rural Housing come and inspect everything that has been done so far. They are looking at the framing work we did as well as the plumbing, HVAC, and electrical work that was done. If we fail an inspection they give us a list of the things that need to be fixed and then they will come for a re-inspection. We were very nervous because the group that started the same time we did in Eagle Mountain has failed every four-way inspection they've had. When I got the news that we passed our inspection with flying colors on the first try, I couldn't stop smiling for three days. Every time CJ came home I would just bust out, "We passed our inspection!" I think he got tired of hearing it. There was one thing that Rural Housing wasn't happy about though but it didn't stop us from passing inspection, it just had to be fixed asap. They weren't happy that the basement wasn't "move-in" ready. The basement was still full of ice and snow as well as lots of trash from the contractors that have been installing things (more than you see in the pictures.)

I wasn't worried about the basement because we still have so much time before we need it cleaned up so I laughed when I heard that was the one thing Rural Housing was worried about. Whether or not it was a big deal to us, Rural Housing wanted the basement cleaned up and "move-in" ready by the end of the week. So guess what CJ and I did on Saturday? Yup, we spent Valentine's Day cleaning the basement. It was more work than I realized. First I swept and picked up the trash. Then I shoveled out the big piles of snow as well as the patches of ice that were being melted by two large heaters. CJ used an industrial blow torch to melt patches of ice here and there as well as the patches of ice that the heaters couldn't reach for fear of starting the house on fire.

As the ice melted I needed to use a squeegee to push all the water to the drain. It wasn't so bad getting all the water to the drain on the side that had the drain. The hard part was pushing all the water from the other room through the one door opening and then to the drain. I couldn't believe the amount of water that the snow and ice melted in to. I felt like Moses parting the Red Sea every time I pushed the squeegee. It took all day, but the basement is done! It looks really good. It will need more sweepings before we move in but that won't be anything compared to what we just did.

It looks like ice but it is really just slightly wet. The heaters had to be plugged in and I couldn't help but take a picture of the first time we used the electricity from an outlet on the inside of the house. Not much to anyone else but to us it is a milestone.

When they poured our basement floor they were supposed to pour our garage floor as well. Because of all the snow and ice at the time they did the basement floor they were unable to pour the garage floor. We were told that we had to wait until all the other homes were done in the other neighborhoods that Rural Housing was doing...and we were at the bottom of the list. I guess they must have hit the bottom, because we now have a garage floor. It looked so pretty when they first poured it.

This is what it looks like after only a few days of use. I am so nervous about my floors once the carpet and linoleum have been installed.

It will be so much better once all the mud is replaced with grass. I'm so glad that landscaping is included.

Unexpected Visit

I got a call Saturday afternoon from my niece telling me that she and my sister were in town and wanted to stop by for a quick visit on Sunday. I was so surprised! There was a wedding that they wanted to go to up in northern Utah. They only had the weekend because my sister had to be back to work on Monday. Since they were driving from Arizona they had little time to visit everyone they wanted to see here. I was so glad that they were able to stop and visit with me. I got to meet my great-nephew Killian for the first time. My mom keeps telling me how cute he is so I was excited to finally get to meet him. He is soooo sweet. He smiles and laughs at everything! I had so much fun holding and talking to him. Since our new house is on the way out of town for them I was able to give them a quick tour of the house. Well, actually it was just my sister because my niece got out of the car for one minute, yelled at me that it was too cold, and got back in to the car. She told me she'll come for a tour when the house is all done because it will be warmer then. We had a good visit. I love those kind of surprises.

The Science Fair

Last week was the girl's science fair at school. I can't wait until the kids can do projects like this totally on their own. I think they really enjoyed the project this year though and because they didn't choose something too complicated and beyond them that they are really looking forward to the science fair next year. I however, am so glad that it will be a year before I have to think about the science fair again.

Elizabeth:

Elizabeth did a study with flavored waters. She took four different flavored carbonated waters and put food coloring in them contrary to what would normally go in them. Then she asked people to taste the waters and tell her what flavor they tasted. She had so much fun with this one. I think she did a great job on her board too. She was one of the kids in her class that were chosen to go on to the district level. Go Lizzie! You show 'em how its done!

Rebecca:

Rebecca did her project on the storage options for popcorn. I have heard that its better to store your popcorn in the fridge to keep it fresher. But I also heard that you should never keep it in the fridge. So Rebecca decided to store the popcorn in different places and then see which one was better. It was interesting because I really wanted to know which rumor was right since popcorn has become our snack of choice. We looked forward to the day that she got to pop all the popcorn. We had a few different recipes for the popcorn and we rented a few movies so that we could be sure to take advantage of the abundance of popcorn we were about to have. My favorite was the white chocolate popcorn. She wasn't chosen to go on to the next level but her teacher said that she scored really high and that it was close. She is a little disappointed but she is glad that her friends were chosen to go.

"Look deep into my eyes...."

So, Megan woke up this morning and this is what I saw. Her eyelid has been red for a few days but it looked so much better yesterday. I certainly didn't expect this! I panicked at first until I realized that it doesn't bother her and her eyeball itself looked just fine (once I got the eyelid open far enough to even see the eyeball.) Of course I called the doctor right away. Apparently this is pretty common for kids her age. It is called Periorbital Cellulitis, meaning, a minor infection of the skin around the eye. Her eyeball is totally fine. No redness and very little drainage. It doesn't seem to bother her at all. If you touch the supper puffy eyelid it feels like a water balloon. This isn't serious and as long as she takes her antibiotic and I keep an eye on her eyeball. I guess it's a bad sign if her eyeball starts sticking out or it can't move in any direction.

Building: Week 8

Another week has come and gone. This was a difficult week with the build because there were some misunderstandings within the group and the construction supervisor was holding a few people back for some reason known only to him, so most people just weren't able to be as productive as they have been and many hard feelings were starting to show between families. We had a group meeting first thing Saturday morning and went over a lot of points that needed to be brought out in to the open and discussed so that they could be dealt with and the group could move on and we can get back to building houses. The meeting must have worked because the group worked really well together for the rest of the day and there wasn't a single bad feeling between anyone, so we were able to get lots of work done on the third house. We got 2 outer walls up and a 3rd wall is nearly ready to go up. We are hoping that we can get back to our super fast schedule and have this house completed in less than 2 weeks. If we can do that, our supervisor will let us work on the next two houses at the same time. The build won't go any faster, but everyone will feel more productive at all times and we hope that it will help to keep the hard feelings at bay.

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Last week we finished the "punch list" for our house. That is the list of all the little odds and ends that have to be done before our part of framing is complete. I look forward to doing the "punch list" on the 7th house because that means that the framing part of the build is over and that is the hardest part of the build. So, we are 1 house down with only 6 more to go...and the "punch list" for the second house is scheduled for this week.

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As for the progress on our house, the roofing is complete, the electrical has all been installed, and our front porch was poured. I expected the roofing and the electrical, but the porch was a surprise. We weren't scheduled for that for a few more weeks.

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This is a picture of the professionals installing our shingles. The significance of this picture is that it was originally going to be our group that had to install the roofing. Since the build took so long to get started and they got such a great deal on the roofing they decided to contract it out saving us weeks on the build. You don't know how grateful I am for that.

Here is the roof completely finished. I thought that the shingles would be darker. I hate that they give you this tiny little sample to look at and expect you to know what it will look like on a grand scale. I also didn't know that they were going to have black vents on the roof. I totally would have picked a darker color for the shingles if I had known all that.

I am soooo excited to see the porch. Of course it means the house is that much closer, but I am also excited to see it right now because walking over all that re-bar was getting old and dangerous. It will be even better when there are stairs so that we can get to the house without climbing in through the 3 foot high garage door.

The rough electrical is finished. I am so happy to see tons of outlets in EVERY room. We are that much closer to having a functional house. They also installed at least 3 phone jacks that I saw. CJ said he saw more. I thought we only got one phone jack and had to have the rest installed ourselves. Bonus!!

Remember in the last post how I showed you that we got to clean our house and it looked so nice. Here is the same spot in the house after the electricians had their fun. The rest of the house looks just like it. I already can't keep up with the house work! LOL

This was the best part of all. My sister and my niece were in town this weekend and they stopped by for a quick visit. More on that in another post. Anyway, my sister was our first family visitor to our new home (it was too cold for my niece so she didn't get out of the car.) It was so much fun to be able to give her a tour! She especially loved the view from the back of the house.

Oh yeah. I forgot to mention that the arch in the entryway to the front room was also completed and it looks great. On a side note, I have had a bad cough and a small cold for two weeks now. Every time I made some progress on getting rid of the cough I would have to go work out in the bad air and wet ground and the cough would get worse. Saturday my cough was really bad so I called my mom (she's a nurse) to ask if there was any better medicine I could take to get rid of the cough. The small cold I could handle, it was the cough that was driving me nuts. I haven't slept well (and neither has CJ) for so long because of the cough. My dad told me that I should get Cold-Eeze for the cold and both my parents told me to go to the doctor to have the cough checked out. So, after I got home and took an extra hot shower so that I could finally feel warm again I went to the doctor. I had a chest x-ray and she told me that I had mild pneumonia. It was a good thing I went in when I did because she said it could have gotten a lot worse if I had kept ignoring it. I did get the Cold-Eeze too so I could fight the cold as well as the pneumonia. I must say that after spending two days in bed (thank you soooo much CJ) I do feel much better. I sure do hope I survive this build. lol

Building: Week 7

Here are some pics of the work that was done last week.

Plumbing and ventilation for the washer and dryer has been installed.

We now have a furnace. (Notice all the ice in the background.)

The heating vents have all been cut and covered.

The big window in front has been installed.

The roofing has begun.

We were finally allowed to clean up the inside of the house.

Before.

After.

We filled up this large box with all the stuff that was on the floor of the house.

The electricians should be here this week. There have been some snags with construction of the other houses. Let's hope these problems can be worked out and things can get back on track.

Note to self: Don't rush Rebecca!

This last Sunday we were taking a long time getting up and getting going. CJ had cooked a really nice brunch (since he's the only one awake before 9:30am on Sundays) and we were all just sitting at the table catching up on what happened last week and what was going on this week. We didn't realize how late it had gotten so we had to rush to get ready for church. I was the last one to take a shower and I had very little time to get ready so I asked Rebecca if she wouldn't mind getting Megan dressed and ready for church. Rebecca was excited and played with Megan before getting her dressed. I said that it was time to go so Rebecca quickly got Megan's dress on and we left. We were a few minutes late for church so we got a seat in the back. About 5 minutes into the meeting I was holding Megan and checking out her dress. This was the first time that she wore this particular dress. The dress has a matching diaper cover which I thought was cute. I was feeling to see how well it covered the diaper and was amazed that I didn't feel the sides of the diaper at all. This diaper cover was doing an amazing job at covering the diaper. I peeked inside the cover just to make sure that Rebecca had put the diaper on straight because Megan tends to wiggle a lot and Rebecca has a hard time getting the diaper on straight. I was totally shocked to see not a diaper peeking back at me but two little baby butt cheeks instead. In the rush to get out the door Rebecca had just skipped the step of putting the diaper on all together. I couldn't help myself and I just started laughing. It was a quiet laugh (so I didn't disturb the meeting, good thing we were in the back) but I couldn't control it so I grabbed the diaper bag, the diaper less baby, and left the chapel as quickly as I could. Out in the hall I just busted out laughing and Megan thought she was missing out on something so she started laughing too. It was just one of those moments that makes being a mom so much fun.

Building: Week 6

We had a fun time this Saturday. CJ and I installed all the windows except for the big picture window in the front. We couldn't install that one because there were some brackets that weren't delivered so we'll just have to wait on that one. It took 7 hours to install the other windows because it was just the two of us but we feel like we really accomplished a lot. The hardest window was the bathroom window (the smallest window in the house. lol) The reason it was so hard was because the hole for the window was originally too low on the wall. When they went to put the tub in they noticed that the tub would have covered half of the window. Other people have been working on raising the hole for the window in the wall here and there so by the time we went to install the window the hole was in the right place but the finish framing around the window still needed to be done. After CJ and I finished framing the hole for the window it went right in. Part of installing the windows included putting the black plastic water proof lining around the windows. That proved to be a big pain but we still had fun working together.

This is the west side of the house with the roof complete and the windows ready for installation.

Here is the house with the windows and water proofing installed.

This is the back of the house with windows and doors. There was another couple working on the doors. Can you believe that the little window in the middle is the one that we worked on the longest? I really like the style of the back door. We didn't get a choice in doors so I was a little nervous at what was going to be installed but I am very happy.

I love the front door as well. We can paint it later if we want but we don't think that we will.The HVAC, and plumbers have been there this week as well. We found many holes cut in the floor for heater vents. The rough plumbing has been started and there are pipes going everywhere. Since we have one tub installed and a water heater in the basement the others in the group kept asking if we wanted to take a bath now. I think I'll wait for warmer weather (not to mention a few more walls) thanks.

I caught CJ just staring out the back door lost in thought when we were cleaning up. He was just picturing the back yard filled with our friends at one of our BBQ parties.

The plumbers and HVAC guys will continue their work this week. We need the heater installed and working to dry out the floors and walls so that the drywall people can come and put up some inside walls. We are also working on finding out where the drain in the basement is under all the ice. We need to uncover it so that as the ice melts the water has a place to go. As CJ and I were starting to clean up we felt a few drops of rain. We were relieved that we had finished just in time since we knew it was going to rain any minute now. I thought I would take a few pictures before we cleaned up. It would only take a few minutes so I thought it would be okay. I was WRONG. I had only been taking pictures for 3 minutes when the rain hit. We got hit with a hard, windy rain that seemed to be dumping an entire lake on us. It was so weird having such a hard rain in the middle of winter. Inside the house we had a waterfall from the sheeting in the roof that was not covered yet. The windows however were holding out the rain like a champ. We couldn't help but sit and admire our work for a few minutes before swimming out to the car.

Oops! It's a late post.

I was going through some of my pictures to send them to my mom and I realized that I had forgotten to post about Christmas so this will be a short Christmas post. We didn't go anywhere for Christmas this year because of the build so we had a simple celebration at home. This would have been a great year to go too because CJ had the whole week between Christmas and New Year's off since his company was closed for upgrades. Well, we didn't get to go visit any family but CJ was able to get a lot of work done on the house that week. We had a really nice Christmas with the girls thanks to our generous family. We are so blessed with such a wonderful family and we love them so much. We had to wake the girls up again this year to open presents (even Megan.) I keep trying to tell them that waking the parents up very early in the morning is a tradition and I WANT them to wake us up. They are such heavy sleepers however that even though they wanted to wake up early, they just couldn't do it. Oh well, maybe next Christmas.

Building: Week 5

Saturday was a busy day, a good day, but a busy day. I was a bit nervous because earlier that week I tripped on my porch steps out front and injured my foot. I jammed my big toe, bruised the middle toes, and broke my pinkie toe. I couldn't put a tennis shoe on at all for three days. I was blessed however, that by Saturday I not only could wear a shoe but was able to walk with no pain at all. My foot came through like a champ, what killed me was my lungs. I was also sporting a bad cough that day. I picked up a little cold from the babies and had been coughing for 3 days as well. My cough wasn't bad Saturday morning so I wasn't even thinking about it. That cold, yucky air (we are having bad air days here from the inversion) hit my lungs and I had a hard time breathing. I didn't do to bad as long as I didn't cough. Coughing was extremely painful.

Anyway, back to the build. Our roof is now fully sheeted and ready for the shingles. CJ and I were inside getting many of the little things done that completes our house. The last step this week is to install the windows and doors. The doors have already been delivered and I love them! The windows come this week.

*Stairway to the ice rink...a.k.a. basement.

*Looking through the walls.

*Sheeting the roof.

*The roof is done.

We are progressing on the other houses. The second house is almost ready for its trusses to be put on this weekend. That house was built in half the time of our house which is the plan. Each house is supposed to be built faster than the previous one. We have actually begun the third house now and it is expected to be done in 3 weeks. They have finally dug and poured two more of the houses. That makes five. In about a month they will come back and dig the final two houses. As of this point we still do not have an eighth family and we are all hoping that they don't get one. That means we would only have to build 7 houses in stead of 8. Since we are already on the third house that means that we are nearly half way there. Professionals will come to do a lot of the work on our house now while we are framing the other houses. About the first week of March we will start painting the inside of the houses. I can't wait for that because that is where I can really start being of some use, not just as a wood cutter and carrier.

Clear Creek

Last week Rebecca got the chance to do an overnight retreat with her class at school. She has been looking forward to this trip since last year when Elizabeth went. The fifth graders go to a mountain camp retreat called Clear Creek up in the mountains about 1 1/2 hours south of here. The boys go up on Wednesday and return Thursday. The girls go up on Thursday and return on Friday. They get to do activities like snowshoeing, sledding, hiking, rope walking, staying up watching movies until they fall asleep, and more.

Rebecca has been counting the days until her trip since the beginning of school. She mentioned that she gets to go to Clear Creek no less then 15 times everyday for the last 5 days before the trip (ugh!). Elizabeth has been remembering many things about her trip last year to give Rebecca a heads up for her trip. She gave her many warnings as well so that her trip could be the most fun possible. She had a great time and loved the rope course the best. She is now counting down the days until she gets to go on her next field trip to "This Is The Place" park in Salt Lake City.