The Progress on the Addition

 We are making great progress on our addition! The concrete work has been agonizingly slow so we're hoping the framing goes a little faster. The concrete was poured in four sections: the utility room, the first-level bedroom, and two in the garage. The day the garage sections were poured it rained quite a bit and left some standing water. Then my husband and I went out and walked around, planning and dreaming. I swear I had bits of cement stuck to my shoes but pioneer husband says it was just dirt. Still, I made both of us go back inside so we didn't risk it.

 Yesterday the four basic walls went up. It made the whole thing feel huge. We realized that you won't be able to describe our house as "cute or quaint" for much longer. It's okay---cute and quaint are not easy to raise a family in.

From here you can see where the two garage doors will be with a man door next to them. On the opposite wall there are two openings. The skinny one is for the stairs and the big one will go into our mudroom.

We had to cut a section of the roof off to fit the framing.

Every night after the construction guys leave we go out and walk every foot of the addition, talking over and over about what will go where. I've found that my husband and I differ greatly and frequently in our opinion about how things should be. It takes a lot of discussion and patience from both of us to try to come together with a plan.

We are ecstatic!

Free Printable

I recently left my school to teach closer to my home. I made some truly amazing friends in my 4 years there and it was hard to leave them behind! As a parting gift I gave them this quote in a frame. I had a lot to make so I needed to keep the cost down. I bought the frames for $3 at Walmart and spray painted them. I didn't buy spray paint for plastic so it didn't stick to the whole frame, creating a distressed look that actually worked well! Then I made the printable in Photoshop and it turned out pretty good! I printed it as a photograph since my printer is constantly running low on ink.

I still have no idea how to put a document in here to be downloaded so you'll have to just save the picture.

The quote is from Winnie the Pooh to Christopher Robin. I found the cartoon on Youtube and it was actually pretty cute!

Flooding Problems

Last Sunday I woke up and started opening the windows all over the house. We do this every morning to let the cool air in. When I opened the front door I was met with a river flowing down our front sidewalk! This isn't uncommon during a major rain storm but we are certainly NOT getting any rain in Utah. Upon further inspection, we found that the entire yard was drenched and our addition had a deep moat around it.

After a little investigation we found that our neighbor (who we love and would forgive anything!) had accidentally left his water on and it happened to drain across our property. He was super nice and offered to replace anything that might be damaged. A few minutes after correcting the problem the water stopped and dried up.

To make the matter a little crazier, when we went to church that morning the Bishop announced that local farmers were having a hard time with the water shortage and we needed to pray for more water. Jonathan and I teased that we needed to offer our yard to the farmers as we seemed to have too much.

Jewels couldn't get out of her house without getting wet. There was NO WAY she was going to get wet.

The lean-to on our shed is housing our vanities for our bathroom. We are hoping there isn't too much damage.

 There's an old brick root cellar buried in our driveway. The water eroded some of the dirt and revealed part of the wall. Every time we dig out there we pull up bright orange bricks! We would love to reuse them but after so many years underground they're practically crumbling.

We are in the process of building a berm along our property to avoid future problems. Let's hope it helps!