Rain, Rain Go Away

Memorial Day weekend was gorgeous outside! Dan and I had lots of fun running and biking outside. You'd think we'd be happy having nice weather on the weekend and rain during the week, but during the week is when our builder and sub-contractors try and work on the cabin. Last week it stormed Wednesday and Thursday and so it pushed the back-fill to this week but now it looks like rain again.

Today Steve is going to brace the basement walls and the plan is to back-fill Thursday so hopefully if it does rain it doesn't too much so that we don't have to push that back to next week. Once that is done Steve will put the deck (top of the basement) on so that they can start framing! So, we really are excited for all of these steps to fall into place.

We didn't go out to the lake this weekend so no pictures, but if they can back-fill this week we'll try to go out on Sunday.

More pictures

Here are a few more pictures of the basement hole with the cabin to give some perspective on the lot. Oh, and an update about the baby raccoons and flying squirrels: the baby raccoons did move out before they took down the final trees and the flying squirrels are apparently still flying around our trees but we haven't seen them ourselves yet. Dan and I put in the dock today too so even though most of our lot is in shambles right now, there is plenty of room to go fishing or swimming if anyone is up for it!

Progress on the cabin!

Here is Dan standing in what will be the guest bedroom in the basement level.

Our new BIGGER driveway!

We went out to the lake today and A LOT has changed! Our contractor warned us that it would look different and of course we knew it would, but we were really surprised at how much it changed the landscape without the trees, a bigger driveway, and the basement being dug. Next week they are expecting to have the basements walls done so we will go out again next weekend and take some more pictures. Stay tuned :)

Amber and Brent

Well, this is almost a year old, but my sister Amber and her husband Brent were married July 7th, 2006 on a beautiful summer day! It has been fun to see them in their first year of marriage both excel in their jobs; Amber as a nurse and Brent as a teacher. They just bought a house in Apple Valley and moved in last week :)

Other Lake Pictures

Here are a few other pictures of the lake prior to the trees being cut down and digging.

New pictures of Paul!

Melissa just sent me some new pictures of little Paul!

Little Paul

Our nephew Paul Joseph Springer III is now 17 1/2 months old and is such a cutie! He loves to smile with his entire face as you can see. Dan's sister Melissa, husband Paul and little Paul live in Chicago, IL so we'd don't see them as often as we'd like but we will post new pictures of him when we get them!

The Lake

Back in 2004 we bought lake property in South Haven, MN. Both of us really enjoy the outdoors and thought it would be fun to have a place to get away to in the summer. We started looking at lake property with cabins and shortly realized that within our price range we would need to look at much older cabins than what we wanted. So, Dan started looking at lake lots instead that were buildable and we could build a cabin on in the future. We found two lots on Lake Marie in South Haven on Hwy 55 about an hour from our house in Minnetonka. It does have a little red "cabin" on it already but it doesn't have electricity or plumbing and is about 16' by 8' with bunk beds on one side. The last two summers we've enjoyed swimming and cruising around in our 7.5 horsepower fishing boat.

Last summer, in July when it was about 100 degrees outside and we were trying to sleep in the red cabin, we thought about how nice it would be to have an air conditioned place to sleep in out there! We started the LONG process of getting approval from the township and Wright County and in November 2006 were told that we could build on our lake! (We'll explain the longer version of that process later).

This winter we had the final drawings done, got a construction loan through my dad's bank: Financial Security Bank, and now that the road restrictions are up (you have to wait until April/May to bring heavy machinery on country roads after they thaw) we are going to start building!

The trees were cut down last week and this Tuesday and Wednesday they are going to start digging. We are going out on Wednesday night to take some pictures and I'll post them soon.

Our first posting!

Dan and I are getting into blogging. We have some friends that have their own sites and we like to read them and this weekend someone suggested that we make our own! Once I figure out how to post pictures I will make this site more interesting :)