Building: Week 24

PROGRESS!!!! We are finally making progress on the houses again. Every one's house was in the holding pattern while the last house was framed and the Parade home was done. They are both finished now so work on all the other homes have started again. Here is some progress on our home.

The final grade and leveling of the yard for the sprinkler system has been done.

The gravel next to the driveway was delivered and spread.

The back porch has been poured. We were only allowed a 12x12 patch of concrete so the porch does not go all the way around the window well but what can you do. They should pour the stairs fairly soon.

The sprinkler system has been delivered.

The paint package and finish hardware have been delivered.

The cabinets have been delivered. After paint and linoleum they will be installed. We moved them into the basement to protect them from the paint. (Side note: a pet peeve of mine is water bottles. See the water bottles on the cabinets? Those are constantly being left behind in all the houses and I haven't figured out who's doing it yet. When I do find the culprit, I will have some words with them. They may not clean up after themselves at home, but it is so rude to leave their trash all over other people's homes.)

We are getting the house ready for paint this week. Paint prep is a boring, tedious, painstakingly detailed job because so many little things must be done in order to insure only the things that are supposed to be painted get painted and all the construction work is covered up by the paint so that everything looks smooth and flawless. Even though it is not a fun job everyone in the group is so happy to finally be doing finish work that we are nearly done with paint prep on all the houses except the last one that just finished framing and doesn't have drywall yet. This picture is of the doors being prepped. We had to take them all off the hinges and cover the hinge holes with tape so that paint does not clog the holes. We had to cover the spot for the hinges on the doorways as well. The doors are now in the basement standing upright waiting for individual paint. I forgot to take a picture but it is amazing how they got all the doors to stand upright. I will hopefully get a picture in this week.

We had to tape off the tubs and any underlayment that was already installed.

We had to cover all the windows and take the hardware off the main doors. Since we couldn't take the doors all the way off we had to tape these hinges while still on the door. The outside of the main doors will be painted a different color than the inside so that is why we couldn't take off the doors. There are so many other little things that have to be done before any painting can take place. But the house is prepped and should be painted this week.

We are also hoping for linoleum this week but the underlayment that was started so long ago needs to be finished. Lets hope I can have busy updates like this every week from now on. It feels so good to finally be moving forward.

Building: Week 23

Sorry it's been so long since I updated again. I have no excuse. I just forgot that I haven't done it. Last Saturday the whole group worked on the home getting ready for the Parade of Homes. We had to do final clean-up and get the home completely finished so that they could inspect it and give the certificate of occupancy for the Parade of Homes that starts tomorrow. I think it gave the rest of the group the boost they needed to get going on the rest of the homes. There is still a lot of pettiness and selfishness going on so we'll see how fast we really do progress. Now that the Parade home is completely done and the 7th house is completely framed there should be no excuse to get started on the other homes again. Please pray for our group to get the work done before July. I truly believe that with many prayers the build can be done by then but it will take many prayers so I am asking for your help. Thank you.

P.S. Our Supervisor told some people in the group that because the Parade home has a certificate of occupancy now that the family in that home could move in as soon as the Parade is over and they do not have to help the group any more. Needless to say we are not happy about that. We'll see what really happens.

Megan antics

Lately Megan has been exploding with personality. She makes me smile and laugh so much. These are just a few of the fun things that she is doing lately.
*She still acts like a dog begging me to play fetch with her. If I don't take the toy from her mouth fast enough she'll stand up, give me the sign for dog so that I know she is being a dog, and then gets back down and begs me to throw the toy. She also likes to come up to me and lick me. I know most kids her age like to lick (Rebecca licked for years) but she does it while panting and barking. We live next to a Fire Station and close to State St. so we hear a lot of sirens. When she hears the sirens she starts to howl. I swear no one ever showed her how, she just started doing it. She also begs for food. When CJ or I are having a snack on the couch she comes up to us with these huge eyes, her tongue hanging out, and panting as she points to the food and then her mouth. Last night CJ was eating a hamburger and sharing it with her while she sat on his lap. He must not have given her a bite fast enough because she just bent down and stole bite after bite of his burger. I told him that she must have been a dog in her former life.
*Lately she has started acting like a teenager. When I tell her to get down, or put it down, or anything else that she doesn't want to hear she puts up her hand and turns her head as if to say, "talk to the hand, 'cause the baby anit listening." It cracks me up every time. I don't laugh of course because she still needs to do what I ask but inside I am seriously cracking up. I've tried to get a picture of it but as soon as she sees the camera she hams it up.
*After I get her dressed in the morning she stands up, raises her arms, and says, "ta-dah". Then she turns around two or three times and models the outfit. If its a skirt she will even do a little dance. I don't know where this is coming from but it is so darn cute.
*When her sisters were reading a book to her they showed her a spider in the book and taught her to scream and pull away when she saw it. Now every time she sees a picture of a bug, a plastic bug, or even a bug on TV she will scream and pull away or even run. The funny thing is that the scream is so fake. She's not really scared, she's just acting like she's scared. She always giggles when she's done.
She is so much fun. I wish I had a video camera so that I could record these moments forever. I am so grateful that she is part of our family.

Building: Week 22

Our home....still in the holding pattern. Home #7....taking waaaaaaay too long. Hopefully some progress will be done this week. We'll see.

Brace Face

Yesterday was a special day for Elizabeth. She has been looking forward to this day for a very long time. You wouldn't think so knowing that it was going to cause pain, but she counted down the days (and minutes) until she could go and get her braces. I knew her teeth were crowded and that she had teeth that were growing in too high (like mine) but it didn't seem like it was too noticeable. I thought that someday she could go to the orthodontist but that it wasn't that critical that she do it now. I was totally shocked when I took her in to the free consultation at the Orthodontist and they showed me pictures of her teeth and the gaps in her bite and crowded smile were so obvious. Ever since then I was keenly aware of how badly she needed braces. To say the least, her mouth was a mess. We set the appointments necessary to start the process and yesterday was the big day for installation.

It was really interesting to watch the preparation since I had no idea what to expect. They put this red retaining wall type thing in her mouth to keep her cheeks and tongue out of the way. It also had tubes coming out of it that would constantly suck the saliva out so that her teeth could stay completely dry during the process. It was so freaky to look at. When they put the tongue piece in and told her it was to keep her tongue out of the way I got claustrophobic and started to panic a little until I realized that it wasn't in my mouth, I could still move, then I started to calm down. She was so much braver than I think I would have been. She just calmly did everything they told her to. I was so proud of her. She said that it didn't hurt, it just felt weird.

This is a polish that they put on the teeth to prepare them for the cement they use to keep the brackets on.

She has the bottom set of brackets in place.

This light is what they use to instantly harden the cement and keep the brackets from moving now that they have been positioned just right.

Here is our new brace face Elizabeth. I'm not used to the amount of metal in her mouth yet. It looks so uncomfortable to me. I guess it doesn't matter what I think because I'm not the one with the new appliances. Elizabeth seems to be doing just fine with it all. She was expected to be in a lot of pain for the first few days so I was prepared to keep her doped up on pain meds, but she was only in a small amount of pain. She took pain meds twice yesterday but that was it. Even the Orthodontist was surprised when he called to check up on her and she was outside playing with the baby because she wasn't in that much pain. It makes me wonder if they missed a step. She was sore when brushing and flossing but is doing great. She does have to eat soft foods for the first few days because of the soreness and to prevent the brackets from popping off before the cement has completely hardened. Anyway, in two short years she will have a Hollywood smile. She is so happy and I am so happy for her.

P.S. When Dakota saw the pictures of how they put braces on your teeth she started to cry because she knows that she too will need braces and she does not want to go through that. Rebecca simply said that she didn't want them and wasn't going to get them. She will need them too though. We'll see what happens.

Building: Week 21

I was out of town last Saturday, (I'll blog about that when I get the pictures) so I didn't go to the build. CJ told me that they put the trusses on the seventh house so it is that much closer to being done. The framing should be complete on that house by the middle of next week and then it is on to finish work on all the houses. Nothing was done on our house again as we are still in the holding pattern. We did submit our landscaping plan so that the sprinkler system plan could be created. Other than that there is nothing new going on with the build. Hopefully there will be more exciting news next week...or at least some news anyway.

Building: Week 20

My mom keeps comparing the weeks of the build to the weeks of a pregnancy. It keeps things in perspective for me. It takes 40 weeks to grow and birth a baby, and we're seeing how many weeks it takes to grow and birth a house. This being week 20 the house if far enough along now that we should be able to find out the sex of the house soon. Are we having a girl house or a boy house? Comment and let me know what you think.

I can't believe we are in week 20! If you remember from a few months back my supervisor predicted that we would be coming down home stretch by now. Well that aint happening! The last house is taking soooooooo long to frame that we are now a full month behind where we should be at this point. It's a long story but we are soooooo done with some of the other families in this build. We knew that this would be a long hard process and that our nerves would be raw by the end but what's happening is just ridiculous. At this rate our June move-in date has been moved to the beginning of August. August!!! That means two more months of CJ being gone every single night. The other families don't seem to care because they only go out 2 to 3 nights a week to build so their lives haven't really been turned as upside down as ours. They all say that they don't know how CJ can go to work every day and then come to the build every night, because they would never be able to do it. It's not that CJ is Iron Man or anything, he does it because we have no other choice. We don't have the options that the other families have to just be able to take a night off when ever we feel like it (and by we I mean CJ.) I wish they could just get over the pettiness and selfishness and just work together to get this build DONE.

Anyway, I just needed to vent a little. Thanks for listening. As far as the work that was done on our house last week, the driveway and stairs were finally poured. That was scheduled to happen back in March but due to weather and other factors we just got it.

Because Saturday was another day of Spring downpours we were forced to work inside. Most everyone was sent into our house to start paint prep. That means that we took caulk and filled all of the cracks of the finish trim around the entire house. I was assigned to put putty in every single nail hole of the trim and on any exposed drywall screws so that when we paint you won't see any holes. This is a long and tedious process but I still like it a whole lot better than framing.

We won't start painting next week like we are supposed to but at least some progress has been made on our house.

Building: Week 19

In the trenches...

This week CJ and I got to help install the sprinkler system at house #5. RHDC had a company come out and trench for us so we thought it was going to go really fast. The trenching however was not as complete as we thought. We started out the day making sure the trenches were deep enough and taking out the huge rocks that seem to plague the ground. CJ helped tunnel the holes underneath the sidewalk to connect those sprinkler heads to the rest, while I dug the large hole for the control boxes. After that I shadowed the person putting the system together, handing him anything he needed for the pipes. I felt like he was the surgeon and I was the nurse. It was a lot of hard work but I loved every minute it. I have never really been a fan of the framing so to finally be able to do something else was a welcome activity. My arms and back are sore from all the digging and I have a big blister on my left hand but I can't wait to do it again. Also, while we were doing our jobs there was a professional crew there installing the vinyl fencing. This is good news because the whole group has been asking if there would be enough money in our budgets to have the fencing installed for us. The office of course has maintained the "no comment" answer every time. Seeing the first house get fencing gave everyone hope that they too would get a fence. I'm happy because that is a the first thing I wanted done after we moved in but I didn't want to have to install it myself. Now we can focus on something else...like grass in the back yard.

Our house is finally getting a driveway and stairs. No more climbing into the house! You don't know how much of a relief that is. You can see a black hose next the the house in this picture. CJ tells me that the hose will be connected to the drain pipes so that the rain water will be directed under ground and collected to water the lawn as well (or something to that affect.) That is really exciting to me. It is an added bonus that I wasn't expecting.

If the weather holds up we will have a completed driveway in a few days.

Here are the stairs on the inside of the garage. There are a lot more steps than I am used to but I am glad they will be concrete. If the door was two more inches higher than the garage floor they would have built a wooden staircase up to the door that looks more like a mini patio deck. While it may sound cool, it's not. Most of the houses in the previous build have them and they look terrible. Not to mention there are at least 9 steps in each of them which makes it a big climb every time you go into the house.

The door leading out of the garage into the backyard. We will most likely expand that spot with more concrete to hold the garbage cans as well.

Our house is finally secure. They have installed the key pad to the garage door so that only those who know the code can get in. See ya later neighborhood kids, and flyer leaving people.

It was supposed to rain off and on all day Saturday. We were optimistic that we could get our work done staying dry when the clouds were gray but there was no rain and the ground was dry. We did get a little rain around noon so we stopped work and had a safety meeting inside the garage. When the meeting was done the rain was gone and we went back to work. Our shoes were now caked in mud but we were dry. The good luck we felt we had didn't quite last all day though because 15 minutes before we were done for the day, the clouds let loose. It was so frustrating because we were so close to being done, and now we were completely drenched and frozen. It took me all night before I finally felt warm again. 15 more minutes and it could have rained all it wanted without a single complaint from me...at least for the rest of that day anyway. Oh well. We really did get a lot accomplished considering the fact that it was supposed to rain all day.

It's not my birthday...

but I woke to find a rainbow of balloons in my front yard. Elizabeth went out the door to go to school and quickly came back in to tell me that I should look outside. I was going to be upset if it was covered in snow again, but knowing that it was definitely too warm to snow this time I couldn't imagine why it was so urgent that I look outside. I was in complete shock to find my front lawn full of balloons. It was like being "heart attacked" but with balloons instead of paper hearts. I thought they were for the girls but I was shocked again to see that there was a note attached to a balloon that read "To Shelly, with love". The note also said there were notes inside the balloons too that I could retrieve when they began to loose their lift. I knew they were not from CJ. I love him, but he would never think of something like this, not to mention have the time to pull it off. Neither of us can figure out who would do this or why. I am completely touched that someone would do this for me.

This picture is kind of cool because you can't hardly see the strings and they look like floating balls.

They were tied to Blow-Pop suckers which the girls are ecstatic about.

Whoever you are, thank you so much!!! This was really special and it truly touched my heart.

Building: Week 18

Again nothing much happened on the home front with our home. The only new picture I have is of the curb being prepped for the driveway.

Since there wasn't that much new with our house I thought I would show you what has been going on at the other 6 houses. Again I apologize for the terrible pictures (I think I will take my real camera next time and get some better pictures.) They all look so much better than a cheap camera phone makes them look.

This is house #2. This is our next door neighbor. They are at the same point we are. They too are in the holding pattern.

This is house #3. They just barely got their stucco painted yesterday. They are officially in the hold pattern now too.

This is house #4. This house is waiting for the rest of the shingles (the sub-contractors ran out last week and have yet to finish.) They are also ready for insulation, then drywall, finish carpentry, garage door, and finally stucco. It sounds like a lot but it really should be done in the next two weeks. The owner of this house, that is across the street from our new house, is our neighbor right now living across the street from our current house. Small world, eh?

This is house #5. This is the house being prepped for the Parade of Homes. They have painted the inside and are putting the rock on the outside. They will get their cabinets, finish plumbing, and finish hardware next week. Saturday they will get the sprinkler system and then the landscaping will be done. The last thing will be the appliances and flooring. This house will be completely finished in two weeks.

This is house #6. This is the house that most of us have been working on for the last two weeks. We finished most of the projects in this house today. There are a few final things that will be done Monday and Tuesday and then this house is ready for all the sub-contractors to get it to the same place that ours is in.

And finally we have house #7. The couple that owns this house have been building it all by themselves for the last two weeks (by their request.) Now that house #6 is done the rest of us can go over and help them. By the end of next week they should have all the walls up and one week after that it should be at the same point that house #6 is at right now.

Once the framing is complete on this house we will start the finish work on all the houses, unless our supervisor decides he wants us to start some of the finish work sooner. Which he may do because Rural Housing wants all of the yards and outside work to be completely done before the Parade of Homes so that our neighborhood does not look like a war zone.

Exciting times my friends.

For my family in Arizona and Nevada

I posted some pictures of our Wintry Spring yesterday, and I thought I would post again because it snowed all through the night and we woke up to a boat-load of snow this morning.

These were taken before the sunrise.

The city of Orem was hit the hardest with this Spring storm. I know we had at least 9 inches of snow at our house (probably more) but the news reported the official total in Orem was 12 inches. It's funny how all the cities next to Orem only got 1-2 inches but we got a foot. Kind of like a tornado that tears through a city destroying one house but leaving it's neighbor untouched. The groundhog saw his shadow on Feb. 2nd so that meant that we would have six more weeks of a harsh winter but the groundhog lied...we're going on 10 weeks now! I know that it will melt off super fast though so really I'm not too upset. I think the only reason that it bothers me at all is because of how miserable it makes the build for CJ. If it wasn't for the build I wouldn't mind at all. I went out to brush off CJ's car last night about midnight so that he wouldn't have to worry about it in the morning but I knew half way through that it was a lost cause. By the time I had finished there was already a layer so thick on the car that I felt the need to brush it a second time. I gave up after that though because the snow was just relentless. I just sat outside and watched the snow fall for about half an hour. It really wasn't cold so it was almost unreal. It was so bright that it looked like daytime, but it was so quiet and peaceful that I felt like I was inside a storybook. It really was beautiful. We are supposed to be in the 70's by Monday so I think our days of snow are over for the season but I think I will remember how beautiful and peaceful it was last night.

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Same pic but with the sun making the snow glitter.

Happy Spring!!

NOT!!!!!!!!!!!My street. Doesn't it make you want to go for a nice Spring walk and enjoy all the beautiful flowers I noticed yesterday.

Those are pink blossoms on the trees trying to bloom. Notice the 1-2 inches of snow on the truck.

My poor tulips.

Building: Week 17

Here are the pictures from last week. Our house is officially in the holding pattern most likely for two more weeks. They did finish painting the stucco and it looks nice for the most part. Remember the spot under a window where the trim color ran really bad onto the main color? They painted over it but it doesn't look as nice as I hoped it would. It looks like a bad patch job. I guess it will be okay because it's on the side of the house and most likely will not be noticed.





It has been raining a lot so CJ has been coming home soaked to the bone and I feel so bad for him. Last night was Tuesday and I try to go out on Tuesdays to give him a break but I had a house full of sick kids (including the little boy I babysit) so he said not to worry about it and he would go. I still feel bad that I wasn't able to help him out yet again. He is getting tired a lot more quickly than he used to and I know that the build is starting to weigh on him but he still has not complained. I am so grateful for my strong husband who sacrifices so much for his family.

Building: Week 16

I know some people were a little disappointed that I was not able to get any pictures posted of last week's build. I must say that it was disappointing to me too when I was going through all the pictures week by week and there weren't any there for week 15. I made sure to take the pictures this week that were meant for last week, so here are last week's pictures.

This is the underlayment in the kitchen.

This is the underlayment in the master bath. You don't think about all the little details that go into a house until you're asked to do the work. I wanted to tell my supervisor that underlayment is over-rated so let's just skip that step. It really gives me an appreciation for construction workers that have to do this type of frustrating work every day.

Here's what the garage door looks like closed. (The pictures aren't always that great because they are from my camera phone.)

The fascia under the roof was installed finally. It really makes a difference.

This is the front window. They have prepped the stucco for the rock that will be on the front of the house. The only options they give you for the rock are, "rock or no rock". We chose to have rock because it gives the house character. We were told that the rock only goes half way up the wall and that is fine by me. I don't think that I like it going all the way up on only one wall anyway. It makes the house look out of proportion to me. Well I guess they changed their minds because this wall is prepped and the rock will be going all the way up. I sure hope it looks good that way because I wasn't even given a choice.

Those are all the pictures of last weeks progress.

Remember this? It has been a really tough winter.

I'm so glad that spring is here because I really got tired of shoveling snow off the floor, out of the walls, and off of the lumber so that we could build walls. Well, I guess Mother Nature decided that we haven't had enough snow yet because that picture is of last Saturday. We got there and had to shovel off two inches of snow before we could start, then three of us were constantly sweeping the freshly falling snow trying to keep it from accumulating while the others tried to get the walls up. Will winter never end!?

Even though the weather was not all that good last week they painted the stucco anyway. I'm sure they regret it now because if you look close enough you can see the paint around the window streaked really bad. The main stucco color seemed to hold up well, it was just the trim that streaked. Luckily they had only done a small amount of the trim.
These are the quoins that were an option for the trim (unpainted, of course.) I picked them for the same reason as the rock, to give character. It seems that so far we are one of three houses in the entire neighborhood that picked the quoins.

Again, not a great picture but you can see the progress. Hopefully soon the scaffolding will come down and you will get a better picture of the color. Isn't it cute? CJ was told that the color choice made the house look "girly". What do you think?

We got a present when we went in to look around this week. An advertisement hung on the inside of the house! This may be common practice for these companies but I feel it is an invasion of privacy. I would never order work from someone who comes in uninvited. I can't wait until the garage is locked and then no one can go in unless they are supposed to be in there.

I want to give a special shout out and much, much thanks to our friend Ken Roberts. He has come out and volunteered with us on the house a few times. It was especially appreciated when he came out the last time. CJ went to a Daddy-Daughter Dinner activity for the girl's Activity Days program at church. The dinner was on a Thursday night so that meant that he would not be able to go to the build that night and in result would loose 5 hours for that week. We stood to be really short on hours that week but thanks to Ken for coming out that Saturday. We ended up with more than enough hours. It was such a blessing because it was the first time in months that CJ was able to focus on just the girls and let them know that even though he is gone all the time he still loves them and will make time for them. If Ken hadn't volunteered for us CJ wouldn't have been able to go to the dinner and that would have broke the girl's hearts. So thank you so much Ken, you are a life saver!!!!!

Rare Picture

I know I have posted a lot today. I am making up for last week and doing all of this week's posts too. I probably won't have time for the rest of the week to post so I'm getting it all in now. I get asked why there are no pictures of me on the blog, facebook page, photo albums etc. I use the excuse that I am always behind the camera, not in front of it, so there are just no pictures of me. Actually, while that is true, it's also because I always manage to leave the room when a camera comes out. Well CJ's Aunt was sitting at the table talking to us one night and decided to sneak her camera out and point it at me. I didn't have a chance to run and hide. I figure since I can't erase the picture from existence I might as well share it. This is a rare picture. It also won't happen again for a long time so this will have to do.