Insulation complete, sheetrock started

Dan and I went out to the lake this morning to bring out some things our builder needed and we were very happy to see the progress! The entire house is insulated and the sheetrock is started. He said he wants to be far enough along that the week of the 8th we can be painting and starting on the things we need to do. Next weekend we will see if we can go out there and get some rooms painted.

Then we went to the airport to pick up Nate and Owen who stopped by for the night before heading back to Singapore. Jon and Kevin came with all of us to Cosettas for dinner and then hung out at our house for the evening. I'm glad we don't have a 24 hour flight to go on tomorrow, the last time we did that it was so long, and I can't imagine doing it with a 2-year-old!

I got my mid-term done yesterday and Dan still has to finish his tomorrow. I'm glad we are half way through this class now, it has been a lot of work this fall!!

Piles of sheetrock

insulation in the family room

Insulation in our bedroom

our master bathroom sheetrocked

The downstairs tub is in too!

Patio Disappointment

We went out to the lake today and to our dismay, the bottom part of the patio had settled and it looks like we need to take about 1/3 of it apart and repack it again. It was so disappointing since we've already had to redo part of it because of the color mix-up, but I think because of the rain the ground naturally settled the part that we had brought the most fill in for. So, now the patio is back on our list of "to-do's". We're hoping that by bringing in more sand and repacking it again it will hold the next time since the rain already settled it once. We'll see!

On a brighter note, our cabinets arrived and look really nice. The framing inspection went well last week and the insulation inspection should happen Tuesday and then they can start sheetrocking. We are shooting for the weekend of October 6th we can start painting so we'll see how close they come. Two weeks is not a lot of time to sheetrock the whole house, plus our builder is doing the ceiling texturing, painting and wall primer at the same time. Today we had our paint mixed at Menards for the living room/dining room and our bedroom. Since they have vaulted ceilings our builder will paint those for us. It was exciting to buy the paint and think that in a few short weeks it will be on the walls!

No pictures this week, but next weekend I'm hoping to have sheetrock pictures. Have a good week!

Dan's Baptism

On Sunday Dan was baptized at our church. Dan's parents, my parents and my sister and Brent came to see the service and stayed for a BYOP (bring your own picnic) afterwards. It was a beautiful day outside, which was good since the service was outside in the tent and the baptismal was in a big tub with warm water.

Dan said he's been thinking about getting baptized for awhile and really wanted to do it at a church he felt connected at. Well, we've been at Cross of Glory for over 5 years now and feel so blessed to call it our church home. We have so many wonderful friendships with all ages and really enjoy the pastoral staff. It is so exciting to see more and more young adults starting to attend church and join small groups. Our small group starts up again next week and we have 13 people this fall! It will be great to be back into the routine of regular meetings with our friends.

Pastor Ron asking Dan about his commitment to Jesus

Dan explaining that he was ready to take this step of obedience in baptism

Pastor Ron baptizing Dan
Praying afterwards

Landscaping story

On Saturday we got to work on our patio out at the lake. The delivery came early at 8 a.m. and dropped off 4 pallets of patio block and rock for us to drag down the hill. We had my Dad's wheelbarrow which promptly deflated its tire on the first trip down the hill. So, we met up with our builder to get his wheelbarrow and also buy the showers for the bathrooms for him to bring out to the lake this week. My Dad came before lunch and helped me re-inflate the tire of the other wheelbarrow so we had 2 to work with. For the next few hours my dad and Dan figured out how to create a level area to put the patio blocks on. It took more brain work then, but after that was figured out then the heavy labor started! Dan and I took load after load down the hill and worked long after dark to finish the job. But, when we were almost done we realized we didn't have enough paver bricks! Menards didn't have enough apparently, but didn't remember to call and let us know. So, we had 9 left and had to leave and hope it didn't rain and ruin our perfectly packed final grade. They finally delivered more on Monday and Dan and I took the day off to finish the job. But, alas, another problem... the new bricks were from a new batch and were MUCH tanner than the other gray bricks we'd already laid. It was obvious which ones were new so we had to call Menards again and have them come pick up the bricks (which we had to push back up the hill) and then Dan had to drive to a different Menards to see if we could find some that matched our original color. He did, so luckily we finished the job Monday!

We also laid the rock around the patio and around 2 sides of the house. Saturday was probably the hardest day I've ever had in terms of physical labor, but Monday was a close second! While I finished the rock around the house, Dan wired inside for our sound system. After the framing inspection (hopefully will happen Wednesday) they will insulate and then start sheetrocking. So, it was good Dan got his wires in before that. We're hoping to be able to start painting and take some more days off of work the week of October 8th. But, a lot of things need to fall into place by then so we'll see! We've had to push back plans before, but it would be nice if it would work out between my travel schedule for work. October is going to be a crazy busy month, but lots of fun to see progress on the cabin :)

Getting started

Dan working on smoothing out the area for the patioPutting the first two layers of bricks as we made the final grade

Finished product!

Busy weekend

Wow, I think I'd like to have more hours in the day on the weekends so I can get more done! Yesterday my mom and I spent hours looking at paint samples and found colors for the entire cabin. Menards is having a paint sale through next weekend so this was good timing to find colors. We brought samples of the bedding, towels, couches and pictures I already had and matched to both the carpet, hardwood floors, doors and cabinets. There is so much to think about when picking paint colors so I'm glad I had my mom with me because she is an expert at this stuff! She said she actually LIKES doing it, so I picked the right person to help me :) Dan was gone at a cabin with some friends from college so it was nice I could get such a big project out of the way.

Today our church started its fall schedule so we went to our normal 11:00 a.m. service. I love sleeping in on Sunday's, and if it means missing part of the Vikings game I am ok with that. We went over to a friends house for lunch and then drove out to the lake. On the way we picked up our phone system for the lake from someone who was selling it on Craig's list. Apparently it is the top of the line phone system that retails for hundreds of dollars (Dan's been researching it at Best Buy), but this couple sold it to us for $40 because it interfered with their baby monitor frequency. Good deal for us! Then we went to our favorite Menards in Buffalo where we spent almost 3 hours shopping!!! Our electrician is coming out tomorrow so we have all the recessed lighting and found a great deal on toilets as well. They have these things called Sorry Slips which locks in the sale price for 90 days if they don't have the items in stock. We love them because then we can buy them whenever we want and won't miss the sale price. That way we don't have toilets sitting all over our basement along with all the other stuff we've bought so far. Then we picked out the paver stones we are going to use for the patio. Next weekend my dad is coming out to help us lay our 12' by 18' patio and our friends Tom and Becky are coming too. We were trying to determine how we were going to get 120 blocks that weigh 42 pounds each out to the lake, when we saw they have a delivery option that was very cheap! It was definitely worth it to avoid sore backs dragging those things to our car not to mention the wear and tear our poor Vibe! So, instead they will deliver everything to our lake Saturday a.m. before the crew gets there to start installing the patio. What a great deal. We almost thought we'd do the sidewalk ourselves too... but then thought better of that idea and only added on all the river rock that we are going to put around the patio and house for landscaping. The best part is that it was just a flat delivery fee so adding on 60 bags of river rock just joined the patio blocks and will be there bright and early on Saturday!

Now I am supposed to be finishing my homework for the first week of our class, but I'm busy watching the Vikings game we taped and catching up on work before tomorrow (oh and posting to my blog!) Our class is very difficult, but I am learning things so far so I suppose that is a good thing. No pictures this week since it was just more plumbing/heating/venting stuff. But, next week is supposed to be busy with the electrician and framing inspection. If all goes well they could be insulating by the end of the week so Dan and I can tile the downstairs bathroom when we take a few days off the following week. Siding will be awhile because they want to get a lot done inside before the cabinets arrive.

Hope you had a nice weekend!

Happy Labor Day!

This weekend was picture perfect weather in MN. We had a lot of fun activities planned and luckily they were all outside. Friday night there was a Momentum event and it was fun to see a bunch of church friends and play games and BBQ outside. Saturday morning we went biking with my dad and a friend of his in St. Paul. It was low humidity so made the ride comfortable. We went a little ways downtown St. Paul and then along the Mississippi and ended up at a look-out over the airport. That afternoon we went out to the lake and saw the plumbing rough-in. It was blue sky all day and so we relaxed in the hammock and swam for awhile before cleaning up some more things in the cabin and heading home.

Sunday was the last day we had our church service under the tent outside... I will miss the breeze and the fun worshiping outside, but it will start to get cooler now that we are getting closer to fall. That afternoon we spent four hours fixing our mailbox, but it is now standing up straight and hopefully will make it through another winter!

Today Dan helped Brent build his deck and I spent the day at the pool with my mom and sister. Another great day to be outside and enjoying the last few days of summer. Our second to last MBA class starts this week too so summer is coming to a halt and back to reality :) Next weekend Dan is going to a friends cabin but we might be out to the lake Sunday so we'll update again after that. Hope you had a good long weekend!

Stuff in the ceiling that I think is for venting... not sure but think they made good progress!

Our master bath has the shower base down and the whirlpool tub is here so we could put the template down to see where the toilet goes