A visit from Crystal & Charley

Crystal and Charley came over to check out the progress on the house...lucky us! Crystal took Kalee out shopping for her birthday, so Rich and I got to babysit Charley for a little bit. The video's are of Charley laughing at my parents...the quality isn't the best, but you'll get the general idea of how cute this baby girl is!!!

Kalee picked out a mask for one of her presents...Aunt Crystal also got her a super cool gemstone rock thingy and a cool key chain...she was in heaven!!!

The best part of being in FL is visiting with Andrew...he is soooo super cute! We pick up the AC equipment tomorrow, then will be heading home

Basement Walls...

They poured the basement walls today - everything looks really good. Kalee is getting excited because she is starting to see how it all is coming together! Tomorrow they will water proof the walls and then will back-fill around the walls on Friday.

They laid out the first layer of gravel for the driveway...very exciting!We will be taking a quick trip to FL this weekend to pick up air conditioning equipment...our friend Donnie is in the AC business and was able to get us a great deal on it, and we are SOOOOO appreciative!

Footers, Power, Wood Flooring and Tile!!!

They completed the footers today and the basement walls go up tomorrow! I missed all of the excitement, today, which is kind of a bummer - it would have been interesting to watch! The power company also installed the power box, so we now have power and water! What more do you need?! ha!

We have also purchased the tile for Kalee's bathroom and the laundry room, and have found some wood flooring that we REALLY like! We have samples coming for a 2nd floor, that we have only seen online, so we are anxiously awaiting its arrival so that we can compare the two. The second flooring choice is $2.oo a sq ft cheaper, so we are hoping we REALLY like that one just a little bit more! Rich is going to install the floors himself...everyone around here keeps telling us how simple it is! Our builder used to install floors himself, so he told Rich he will help get him started, and Rich is going to take a class at Home Depot this weekend. Tile for Kalee's bathroomTile for the Laundry Room

More Basement pics

Brrrr....It's cold outside! 30 degrees...oh, and GO GATORS!

They should be here at 10 am to start the footers.

Digging the Basement

They dug the basement today. It ends up that it was pretty much solid rock in the area where they dug the basement, so we ended up having to dig a hole on another part of the property in order to get fill dirt. Now they will fill that hole with some of the rock they pulled out. We ended up having to pay a little extra to rent the big dumptruck, but what can you do?!

So, the grade of the back yard is a little more severe then we all expected...the video below is of the big dumptruck trying to make it up to where the basement will be, to drive over the dirt to pack it in a little. I didn't think about taking a video until the end, but it was quite comical. Near the end of the video you can see one of the other tractors helping to push it up the incline!

This picture is a little dark, but it shows all the rock that is in the walls of dirt. Rich says "at least our house won't settle too much!"

Tomorrow they lay out the footers and the walls are scheduled to be poured on Monday. Things are moving right along...

Clearing the land!

They started clearing the land on Monday. There have been a few bumps, but nothing major. We've had to shift the house around a little, they found a lot of rock - which thankfully can be broken up by the equipment and doesn't require dynamite...at least so far, and they took out the one tree I didn't want to lose. But other than that they are making progress!

This was the one tree that I did NOT want taken out...but, the slope of the land is greater than they expected and it was this tree or spend up to an extra $20,000 for fill dirt...so, they took the tree!

Kalee and Ally (who is our builders daughter) played while the guys supervised the clearing.

Rocks everywhere! They dug out a test hole and went down about 6 ft and found rock, rock and more rock! Hopefully they will find a little more dirt, so that we don't have to truck it in (and pay for it!!!)

Digging the WELL!!!

They started drilling our well today! They stopped at 120 ft, for tonight, and will start again, in the morning! We already have enough water for the house, but we are going deeper, because I would like to be able to wash clothes and take a shower at the same time!!! Exciting times!The peanut gallery...my aunt and dad came out to watch the drilling. I missed most of it...they finished for the day 5 minutes after I got home.

Our Georgia Christmas!

We got home around 10:30 last night...I slept in until 11:30 this morning - that felt soooo good! Anyway, we opened presents and had our traditional dinner with my family - lasagne - YUM!!!

Midnight crashed on the way home, too...she was super cute!

Kalee has had a barbie christmas...and could not be happier!!! Thanks Uncle Joe & Aunt Cindy for the barbie and car! Chase's favorite gift was the Batman lego's...he was super excited!

Rich got a King Cobra 3 wood golf club...

Poker night!

We were able to squeeze in a few nights visiting with friends while we were in FL. We had breakfast with Alison & her family, played "bones" (domino's) with the Hanley's and had poker night with Donnie, Luv, Troy & Todd. It's so nice to be around your friends!!! Poker night was a ton of fun...mix that with Reid Harted's (our own special concoction of gin, sweet & sour and cheery 7 up) and it becomes a little bit more entertaining!!!I was the big winner, until the last hand, which is when everyone goes all in with what they have left. Then I lost to Donnie...whatever! It really was a funny joke!! Luv was using my line "it's night-night" by the end of the evening...ahhhh...memories!