Under 100 days

I can't believe that our new little baby will be here in less than 100 days. Time is really going too fast. He gets bigger everyday. I think he will be about 30lb by the time he is born. My belly just sticks out there like I'm already 8 months. So far so good with the pregnancy though so I can't complain. I tell Megan that I have a baby in my tummy. She now believes there is a baby in her tummy as well. She grabbed her tummy one day and acted like she was in pain. I asked her what was wrong and she said "baby, kick". It was so funny. When I have her talk to the baby in my tummy she wants me to talk to the baby in her tummy too. I love it. We are still working on a name. It has been the hardest baby to name so far and is starting to cause some tension between us. I don't want to be rushed into a name and he just wants one asap. I have been praying that we will find the name that is meant for our only son but so far I haven't heard it. If you have suggestions we'll take them.

Lift A Teacher.org

My brother and my mother have started a new organization recently that I think is a wonderful idea. They started a non-profit organization called Lift A Teacher. He can tell it so much better than I can but I will try. They have made some excellent quality, heavy duty cards that kids can personalize and send to their teachers, coaches, school librarians, etc. to let them know how great they are, or to say thank you, or what ever they want. All the kids do is go to the web site LiftaTeacher.org and select a card they like and then personalize it. The organization will then print the high quality card and mail directly to the teacher for the students. This is a simple way to make sure their teacher knows how much your child appreciates them during teacher appreciation week, on their birthday, for the holidays, at the end of the year, or for what ever reason. You get the idea. The cards are only $2, and like I said they are really nice, quality cards so they will last for years. They even have it set up so that the school can register with the organization and earn money for every card that is sent to their school. It's a fund raiser similar to the "Boxtops", and "Campbell's soup label" fund raisers. The school gets extra cash with no overhead. It can earn the school money year round. There is also a place on the website that you can enter a teacher in a contest so they can win monthly prizes. They are able to send the cards to any school in the US so please, please, please pass the word to everyone you know, no matter where they live. Visit the website and look around. If you have any questions you can let me know. For those of you here in Utah, I have a set of the cards that I can show you if you'd like to see the high quality that they are.

I am only one person with my one little blog, but if all my blog friends told others about Lift A Teacher on their blogs and asked their blog friends to do the same we could really get the word out to so many people.

I know I'm prejudiced because this is my family, but I also think that what they are doing is so special and unique that I would promote it anyway. Sending a card to a teacher to let them know how great they are is an easy way to lift their spirits. It's also great for me because I am not crafty and I don't always have money or remember to get the teacher a gift from the store. This is an easy (and much cheaper) way for my kids to actually get the gift so that it really is personal and not something I did and had them put their name to.

Lift A Teacher is also on Facebook. If you are on Facebook I urge you to join their group and invite everyone you know to join their group too. They already have over 100 members from all over the country. It's really catching on. There was a company in Arizona that heard about what they are doing and thought it was such a wonderful idea that they are sending out their own people to schools to promote the cards. I am so proud of this organization and I would love to see it grow like wild fire.

Thank you so much for all your help.

Bugs

So when you build your house in the middle of a field you're gonna get bugs. It was really cool at first because we would see a ton of grasshoppers. I know that grasshoppers are not necessarily a good thing but what I liked about them was that they were different colors. Some were black, some light or dark brown, some a light green, and some (my favorites) were a bright vivid green. I have never seen so many different colors of grasshoppers. The other bugs I like that we get so many of are praying mantis bugs. Again they come in the same colors as the grasshoppers. If we're not careful the praying mantis come in the house when we open the door at night. I even had one hiss at me when I tried to put him back outside. Unfortunately we also get spiders, earwigs, big black stink bugs, and many hornets too. We had at least three hornet's nests on our house when we moved in. We decided to have a pest control service spray our property because we didn't want the influx of bad bugs from the field to make their new home inside ours and we especially wanted the hornet's nests gone. We see all kinds of bugs dead on the porch or driveway that were not able to make it in to the house. Unfortunately, my favorite praying mantis bugs seem to be the biggest victims of the poison. I wish there were some way to kill the hornets and spiders without killing the praying mantis too. I sure hope we made the right choice.

I'm Back : )

It has been so long since I have been able to blog. I can't believe how long it's been. It's so funny, when I didn't have the Internet I would see things happen or take pictures of things so that when I got the Internet back I would be able to blog about it. That's all I could think about was the blog. lol Well, I am having trouble getting pictures off both my phone and my now broken camera so I don't know when or if I will be able to post them. Plus because I didn't write the things I wanted to post about down I think I have forgotten most of them. Anyway, I guess I can just start from where I am and put the other posts in when I remember them.

We found out after we moved in that not only do we not get cable but we don't even get local channels. We have the digital converter box but because of our street's proximity to the mountains the signals for the local channels bounce away from us (they call it the black hole here) and we are not able to pick up anything but one Spanish channel. I knew it would be hard without cable but I didn't think we would be completely without TV. I didn't realize how much our lives revolved around it, even if it was on just for noise. We knew that we needed the Internet for reasons I think all of you can sympathize with so we hunkered down and found a solution that was still more than we were paying but not as much as we thought we'd have to. It comes through a satellite they placed on our house so we had no problems getting it in our new neighborhood. I am very happy to have it back. We did decide however that we could not afford satellite for our TV as well so we have resigned to the fact that we don't have TV anymore. I was actually relieved because I have been wanting to unplug the TV for so long but knew that CJ wouldn't let me, now he has no choice and the TV is gone. That doesn't mean that it stays off however. Because they are still getting used to the idea that they can't just plop in front of it whenever they want they still have the desire like an addiction to have it on and doing something so they either play DVDs a lot or play video games. I hope one day the withdrawl from the TV can be complete and we can focus more on the gospel and each other rather than what noise comes from that box. I look at this as a blessing and pray that it lasts. (I will admit that I do miss watching the news though. That is where I'm having my withdrawls.) Anyway, I will post more later, I just wanted to let you all know that we are back.

The post you've been waiting for!!

Well, it's really late or really early which ever way you want to look at it. I have to try to be quick and that's not easy for me but I know that many of you want to know how my appointment went before I am unable to post anymore. First off the baby is still very active. The ultrasound tech was chasing the baby the whole time. The baby is also pretty big. Other than that everything looks pretty good. I do have to go back in a month to check on some anatomy that she couldn't see this time but she didn't seem worried or anything so I think everything is good. At the last visit where she checked before I could tell her that I didn't want to know the legs were closed and that has always meant girl for me. The ultrasound tech confirmed that if the legs are crossed it is almost always a GIRL.
I was not surprised, I have known since the beginning that I was having a girl. I am just fine with the idea of having 5 daughters. I just thought I would go ahead and confirm it though at this appointment. The poor tech was so nervous that she checked and re-checked the gender because she didn't want to be wrong. Imagine my amazement and utter shock when she said, "It's a boy". I didn't believe her at first. I thought she was playing a joke. Then she showed me on the screen the little boy parts and I couldn't deny it. We're having a boy!! I wanted to shout it from the roof tops. Anyway, we couldn't be happier. We didn't care one way or the other because this child will be loved, but to finally have a son makes it all the more sweeter. I have to go (I fell asleep while proof reading, lol) I hope to write more soon.

I want to cry...

I got some really bad news when I called the cable company to switch to the new address. That part of the neighborhood is too new, they don't have cable lines out there yet. WHAT???!!! I just got cable and I love the high speed internet through cable because I've never had a problem with the connection and it was so much cheaper. I asked when they plan on installing the lines and all the operator could tell me was, "not in 2009". I was crushed, this means that the girls will loose cable (not a bad thing in my opinion but they actually cried) and I will have to go back to Qwest for internet. So I called Qwest to re-start our high-speed internet. I was floored when that operator told me the same thing that the cable company did...they don't have high-speed internet available for that area yet either. NOOOOOO!!!! The internet is like another part of me. I might as well crawl into a box and never come out. What am I going to do without the internet?! I was told that they did have dial-up internet available. I thought, what's the use, dial-up is such a dinosaur that I will go crazy waiting for each page to load. Our only other option is UTOPIA, a very expensive internet available in only a few cities and ours is one of them. I can't believe I am faced with this option. It's like going to buy a car and all they have is a Model-T or a Lamborghini. Like I said, I just want to cry. Well, this is what's going to happen. We probably will get dial-up so that I can still pay my bills and hopefully check email, but blogging probably won't be an option since dial-up can't handle it. I might be able to blog occasionally but definitely not with pictures. I will try to keep up on your blogs but it may take an hour just to read one post so I don't know that it will be possible. If our budget allows we will think of getting the very expensive internet so that we can be part of civilization again but who knows how long that will be...a week, a month, a year. Until then, know that I'm doing the best I can to still be a part of the blogging world.

By the way, my ultrasound is tomorrow morning. I will be taking the computer down tomorrow so you may never know what the results are. You can blame the phone and cable companies for not putting cables in EVERY neighborhood. Just kidding, the appointment is in the morning so I should be able to blog one last time before the move. However, my day is so full tomorrow that I may forget to blog. Let's just hope that doesn't happen.

Open House

Well, the open house went really well. The day before the open house the wind was horrendous. I thought I was going to blow away. The wind was blowing dirt inside the house, the car, and everywhere else. I was so covered in dirt by the time I left that I didn't think I would ever get it all out. We prayed very hard for good weather the day of the open house so that the house wouldn't be ruined by dirt getting trampled into the floor, all over the walls, etc. As you can see in the pictures it was cloudy and threatened rain but it did not rain. The wind was also cooperating and did not blow until the end. I feel very blessed.


This is the little tree that CJ and I planted in the wind. It held up very well and looks cute in the yard. It isn't getting enough water to the roots though because of the slope in the yard and we are loosing it. I will be very sad if our first little tree dies. I really like the tree and think it will be beautiful. Pray that we can save tree.


These are the official ribbon cutting scissors. I thought they were plastic but they aren't. They are real scissors just humongous. Dakota has been hoping they would let her cut the ribbon since the day she heard about the ceremony so I thought that she would really like to hold the scissors.


They usually tie the ribbon on to the garage but they ran out of ribbon about 3 feet short of the garage opening. They decided to tie it to the porch instead. I think that it looks so much better picture wise here than it would have if they had tied it to the garage. It makes the house look like a big present.


Here are the families in the build (minus two families who thought they were too good for the picture), the mayor, the Rural Housing staff, and who ever else wanted to be in the picture waiting to cut the ribbon. If you look really hard you can see that the ones they chose to cut the ribbon were Rebecca and, you guessed it, Dakota. She was sooooo happy.


And the ribbon is cut!

Look at the amount of people in my driveway. The camera lens isn't big enough to show everyone so there were even more than you can see. I don't know the actual number of people that came through to tour the house but it was a lot. At 6pm on the dot we got to lock the doors though. We weren't sure if we were done with the build or not though since the inspections on the homes still hadn't been done and we could not get our certificates and keys until all homes passed inspection. At about 5pm the inspector finally showed and he quickly went through all the homes. At about 5 min. to 6 we got the news that all the houses passed and the homes were officially ours. The build is officially OVER!! It won't sink in for a while though. We won't get the certificate of occupancy until they copy them at the office and that won't be until at least tomorrow but they did give us the keys and told us we could move in. We are packing the moving truck this Tuesday and moving in on Wednesday. We are excited and scared at the same time. I wanted to be more ready for the move but I just feel so unprepared. Oh well. It's almost over. I just want to thank everyone again for their love and support and especially their prayers while we went through this trial. We feel so blessed and we know we couldn't have done it without you.

Building: Week 33

It looks as though it takes 33 weeks or 8 months to build a house (and 6 others), well 34 if you count this week since CJ is still going out at night this week too. We are still working on little things here and there but if all goes well we will be completely finished with the build TOMORROW!!! It's all pending on each of the home inspections. The open house will go on as scheduled even if the homes don't pass inspection. All that would mean if a home does not pass is that the build continues on.

Okay, so it's really hard to read, at least on my computer, but this is the post card we were given to hand out to invite people to the open house. I've been looking at it for almost a week now and seeing it on the computer made it more real to me. This is the open house for us and not for another group...WOW. The house pictured on the post card is the Parade of Homes house but the address in ours. That's right, the open house ribbon cutting ceremony will be at our house. Everyone is invited so if you would like to come please feel free.

Here are a few of the things done last week to finish our house.

There was a railing installed in the garage. I didn't expect that one.


The sod was planted. We did have many volunteers from the group and we were able to get all 6 houses planted in one day.

It doesn't look so pretty in the picture but now that everything has been cleaned up and the sprinklers have watered the grass it looks so much better. We will be planting our trees today and that will give the yard a more finished look. We still have a lot of landscaping to do once we move in but it will be on our time and not something we're being rushed into so I can't wait. We will also get a fence in about 2 months as part of the build but we don't have to have it to move in so that's why it will be done after we move in.

I am going to be at somewhat of a loss now that I won't have the house to blog about on a weekly basis (after I blog about the open house of course.) I wonder if this is a tiny bit of what JK Rowling felt like after she wrote her last Harry Potter book. lol It's been a long road but we are at the end and it feels great.

Peanut Update

On Monday this week I went to my routine appointment to check on the baby. The little doplar they use in the office to hear the heartbeat couldn't pick it up so I had to have an ultrasound to check the heartbeat (as usual.) For the first time the baby was asleep. The heartbeat was good and strong so I thought everything was okay, but the Tech said she wanted to check something out real quick. I didn't know what she was checking on until she was already done. I was a little nervous thinking that she saw something wrong already, but I didn't need to worry though because she was only checking to see what the sex of the baby was. Before I knew it she told me what she saw, so now I know what the sex of the baby is. I was so mad! She didn't even ask me before she told me. I didn't want to know. I wanted to be surprised. That didn't go like I hoped. Anyway, the full spectrum ultrasound is scheduled to be in two weeks and I'll get to know if everything else is going okay with the baby then. I won't need to debate on whether or not to find out the sex anymore though since I already know. I guess I could debate on whether or not to tell everyone else or let you all be surprised.

Family Camp

Last week we did something we haven't done for three years. We went on vacation as a family...a whole family. Everyone, including CJ, left for three days and went to Wyoming. The girls are involved in the local 4-H club and that week end they were having Family Camp at the 4-H camp ground 20 miles west of Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Because of the girl's great participation and the constant family involvement the leaders of the Utah County 4-H awarded our family with a scholarship to attend the camp. We had to provide our way to and from the camp, and what ever we wanted to do on the free day, but everything else was included in the scholarship for only $25. We were so excited.

The first day at camp we were in charge of a Family Bonding Workshop. There were 6 workshops lead by different families that everyone rotated in and out of for about 20 min. each session. I decided to do a family version of The Newly Wed game. I had 2 members from each family in that session come up to play the game. I was so nervous about this because I don't like being in front of people very much, especially people I don't know. I didn't realize though that the workshops were optional. Only about 8 of the 21 families even showed up. When our family came in to the workshop they were the only ones out of the 3 families that were supposed to be rotating with them so instead of playing the game I just let the girls draw on the boards we were using for the game.

We had more rotations the next day and since I wasn't in charge of anything I was able to go and enjoy them too.

Craft time. We each got to make a bug jar. The little girl in the front was attached to Elizabeth for most of camp.

Water balloon volleyball. This was cool because they used full size balloons instead of regular water balloons so you got really wet.

Megan had a blast. She was free to walk where ever she wanted and she walked a lot. She loved the freedom. The only thing she didn't like was falling down. She fell and skinned her knees a lot. It was hard keeping her entertained though when we were tired and needed to sit down for a while. Thank goodness for ping pong balls. She would entertain herself for quite a while with just one ping pong ball.

Thursday night we had the big camp fire sing a-long and talent show. No one knew about the talent show so everyone had to scramble to come up with a talent to share. We used the knowledge Rebecca had received at one of the 4-H after school clubs she was in (cheer leading) and had her lead her sisters in a family cheer. While they were practicing Megan was joining in and it was hilarious, when she was in front of everyone however she got really shy and just stood there. I am proud of my girls for performing in front of all those people on such short notice. The worst thing about the camp fire was that our bug spray had worn off half way through and we were being eaten alive by mosquito's. If you counted all the bites we got as a family we had over 200 bites in just a short amount of time. You don't quite realize how well bug spray works, until it wares off.

Friday was free day. Most of the families went to Teton National Park or even took the 2 1/2 hour drive up to Yellowstone. We opted to have an easy non-stressful day. We took our time getting ready and only went to Jackson Hole. We hit the antler arches first (because you can't leave Jackson Hole without a family picture in front of the arches) then we walked around town and went to some of the shops.

The first shop we went into had a lot of taxidermy animals in it. Rebecca didn't like it but the others thought it was cool.

Megan was afraid of the bear but put on a smile as soon as she saw the camera. Dakota was flexing her muscles showing that she was not afraid of any silly old bear.

Megan didn't know that the animals weren't alive. She kept trying to get the "kitty" to play with her. She didn't want to leave it.

Most of the shops were either art or clothing. The girls were not all that impressed. I looked down a side street to see if there were any shops the girls would be more interested in. I saw the Jackson Playhouse and was excited that the town had a play area for kids to enjoy. Alas, the Playhouse was not like the one at McDonald's where the kids can run around and get their energy out, it was a Theatre. I felt like an idiot (and still do.) The people were so nice. They let the girls go on stage and touch anything they wanted. The play of the month was "Grease". The girls had just gone to see "Singin' In The Rain" at the Theatre in Orem so it was fun for them to go on stage and pretend that they were the stars of the show.

After the shops we went to the park in the middle of town and just kicked back and relaxed for a while. The kids ran around and had fun. We waited for the Old West Shootout that happens every night at 6pm. The gun fire was 10 times louder than I expected and it scared Megan so she cried through the whole show.

As you can see, the day was busy enough without trying to squeeze as much as possible in to it. After the gun show we went to dinner (Wendy's was the only place we could find that wasn't $20 a plate) then went back to the cabin and played games together until bed time. It was a great day.

We left Saturday morning as soon as we could because we still had to put our time in at the build so we needed to get home asap. The girls traveled really well. After the 5 hour trip home we dropped the girls off and went straight to the build because we still needed to put in our 6 hours. It made for a long end to a long week, but we would do it all over again.

Building: Week 32

Well, there are no pictures this week because most of the work on our house is done and what was done on our house was mostly cleaning so there's no need for pictures since I'll take pictures on the day of the open house and they will pretty much look the same as it does now. Last night we were told that the open house was FINALLY scheduled for August 6th. We don't have a time yet but anyone who would like to come is welcome. It would be a chance for you to walk through all the homes that we just built and see our handy work up close and personal. There will be a short presentation, refreshments, and then all the houses will be open to the public. We have been to so many of these that I can't believe this open house is for our group and not another group's. I'm not sure when we will actually be moving. After the open house is over we will have our certificate of occupancy and would be able to move in that day if we want. I think though we will start moving some stuff in that week end but we will do the major moving (meaning the U-Haul truck) the next week end or even during the week (cause that's cheaper.) I may change my mind though. We'll see. It still doesn't seem real yet. We've been waiting for it for so long now (we started the process almost two years ago) that I almost don't believe we will ever get to move in. On another note, I have started packing. I am about 1/4 of the way done. It doesn't matter how many boxes I pack, there still seems to be about a thousand more that need to be done. I feel confident that we will be ready though and it should hopefully go very smoothly.

Building: Week 31

Well the stone is finally finished grout and all. I must admit that I was really questioning my choice for stone because it didn't look right. Seeing it done with the grout though made all the difference. I really like it now. It looks so good. The grout is a little more red than we would like but it's not bad. It looks good close up and from a distance. Anyway, we didn't do as well with our schedule we were given but it was an unrealistic schedule so we're not surprised. We are still hoping to have the open house the first week in August. The last major hurdle is landscaping. We are going to have a sod party on Aug. 1st. We are trying to get as many people as we can to come and help that day so that we can get the sod planted for all the houses in one day. That's going to be interesting. We're almost there!!

Early Morning Movies

Last week was the premier of the Harry Potter movie #6. I have always gone to the midnight showing of the Harry Potter movies since film #2 came out. Since the kids were too young and CJ is not a night person, I always went to these movies by myself. That was not the case this time. The girls are old enough now to stay up late and go to the movie with me. I was excited to finally be able to share this experience with someone. I did make them work for it though. I told them that they would only be able to go to the movie if they read the book first. That was no problem for Rebecca, she had already read the book 5 times. It was more of a challenge however for Elizabeth and Dakota. Dakota decided that she didn't want to go to the movie anyway because she didn't want to stay up that late, but Elizabeth rose to the challenge and started reading the book. She hasn't finished it yet but she read everyday for a while and for her that was a great accomplishment so I still let her go. I lost track of time and didn't realize how close the movie premier was and I almost didn't get tickets. There were 13 screens in the theatre we went to that were showing the movie at midnight and all 13 were sold out before I got there 2 days before the premier. I asked for the next available time and it was 3:30am. I bought the tickets for that time a little disappointed that it wasn't the midnight one but was still satisfied because it would still be fun for the girls to see the crazy people that go to these premiers. The crowd did not disappoint. Most of the people coming out from the first showing were dressed up and the girls thought it was fun to watch them. I had a hard time staying awake for the whole movie. I drifted off towards the end and probably missed about 3 minutes of the movie but I made it. The girls had no trouble making it through the movie (of course they had a nap before we left for the movie) and can't wait for the next movie to come out so that we can do it again.


Waiting for the movie. We were let into the theatre 5 minutes before the movie started because it took them so long to clean up after the first crowd. That was frustrating, but the movie was good. It will never be as good as the book because the book just has so much more detail in it, but they did do a pretty good job. All in all it was a fun night with my girls.

Happy Birthdays!!

Last week we celebrated Rebecca's 11th birthday and Elizabeth's 12th birthday. I feel really bad that I didn't blog on their birthdays but they forgave me. Rebecca was soooo excited for her birthday. She counted down the days, hours, and minutes constantly, lest we forget that her special day was coming up. Her birthday was on a Saturday so we couldn't spend the morning with her. She also had a primary activity that morning that she was excited about so I asked Nancy if she could take the kids to the activity for me. She not only took them to the activity for me but then she took all 4 of them back to her house until I came home from the build. That was so special for them and they really loved the time with their friends. While they were there they made cupcakes to share with Rebecca for her birthday. Rebecca wouldn't let them sing happy birthday to her until noon because that's when she officially turned 11. I thought that was pretty funny. Elizabeth was a different story. She was happy that she was finally turning 12...until it happened. Everyone in church (her day was on Sunday) that passed her seemed to know it was her birthday whether they knew her or not and they all wished her a happy birthday. By the time she got home she no longer wanted anyone to remind her that it was her birthday and she went to her room. She wouldn't even join us for her cake ceremony. Her dad finally convinced her to come out of her room and let us at least say happy birthday to her before she blew out her candles and went back to her room. Thankfully she ended up staying upstairs with us and even had a small piece of the cake. I think she's over whatever pre-teen hormonal thing that was causing all the trouble now but if we wait a day or two it'll probably happen all over again. She'll probably kill me for telling you this (and I don't blame her) but it was so unexpected that I thought I would share. Anyway, it was her first official day in Young Women's. I was invited to join her during opening exercises. I am so happy for her. I am so happy for them both. They are wonderful girls and I feel so blessed to be their mother.

Building: Week 30

Wow!! 30 weeks of building. That number seemed so far away when we began this endeavor. Our house is nearly complete. We are waiting for the others to catch up now. They are not that far behind at this point and that is exciting. In our meeting last week our supervisor gave us a calendar with a schedule of things that still need to be done to all the houses. All of the tasks ended on July 30. We asked him if he believes that we will be done on the 30th. He said that if we stick to his schedule we will indeed be done on the 30th of this month. He told us that this week is our test week. If we prove to him that we will work hard enough this week and keep to his schedule he will give the RHDC office their two week notice and we will have our open house in the first week of August. He said he will try and talk them into having it on July 31, but that is a Friday and their office is closed on Fridays. They absolutely will not have it on a Friday, so the next available dates would be when ever the office can the following week. Tuesdays and Thursdays seem to be their days of choice so we'll see what happens. This means that we are finally counting down the weeks for real now and not just guessing when the open house, and subsequently move-in day, will be. And it will not be a day too soon. With the temperatures soaring and this apartment lacking air conditioning we are sooooo ready to get out of this place. It has been a very long process but it is almost over. We knew it would be difficult not only physically but especially mentally (and trust me...it was) but we also knew it would be worth it in the end. Well, now that we are seeing the house in it's nearly finished splendor we are very excited and we are so glad that we did this program. We know that we could not have done it without the Lord's help. We are thankful for the answers to our prayers and all the prayers on our behalf. There is still work to be done and trying to get it all done in three weeks will be difficult but it can be done. Here is a short list of the things that still need to be done:

Outer stone on two houses

Grout stone on all houses

Electrical in 1 house (sub-contractor)

Carpet in 3 houses (sub-contractor)

Finish hardware in 2 houses

Plant grass or sod for all houses

Build back steps or patios for all houses

Clean garages and basements
Final Clean up of all houses

There are many little things that I won't name to be done too, so you can see that it is still a lot of work to be completed in 3 weeks but everyone is pushing hard now. Keep praying for us please, we need the Lord's help to accomplish these tasks.

Here are the latest pics of our house:

No, that's not dirt on the floor, we have carpet now. It looks nice. It made some of the rooms look bigger.

We finally got our appliances. Now our kitchen is functional.

Even the kitchen sink was finally installed. No more big hole in the counter top.

There were things I forgot to take a picture of. The drywall people finally came and patched the major drywall issues we had. They are going to sand the putty today so we'll see how much dust they get into the carpet. But it does mean that the final paint touch-up can be done now. The other thing that we finished on Saturday was the outer stone. It looks a little better now that it is all done, but I am still reserving judgement until the grout is done as well. Then we will see how I feel about it. The one thing I do like is that it is the only house in the whole neighborhood with "round" stone. Our house truly is unique. I can't say that it will be that way forever though. USDA bought out 14 more lots in our neighborhood (including all the lots around us) so someone else may see our stone and pick it. Anyway, things are looking up.