Chattanooga Highlights

We spent the last 2 weeks in June in Chattanooga.  What a wonderful time.  We visited with friends and family and got to hike and play in our old favorite spots.  We got lots of pictures but not of everything.  So here are just a few highlights of our days.

Fun with Friends! We got to see so many friends.  We are sorry to have missed a few but glad to have seen the ones we did.

Fun at the Fountain! The Coolidge Park Fountain is a great place to hang out!

 

 Fun at the Creek! North Chick is one of our favorite spots on the planet.  We spent many days there and had glorious fun.

Fun with the Bees! We got to steal some honey with Aunt T!  That was awesome.

Visiting a Great Grandma

We went to Chattanooga to visit friends and family (post coming soon).  And while we were there we drove over to Asheville to visit my Nana.  We had a lovely visit and really enjoyed seeing her.  Stuart took some good pictures of Nana and the boys.

Foundation Poured

Foundation was put together in and poured in a total of 3 days.  Amazingly fast.  When they work this fast, I wonder if they are making mistakes.  But the foundation is square and level and looks great! 

 Here they are putting together the forms. 

  

Here is Stuart assessing the forms after work. 

Then they brought in the the big pump truck.  This thing was amazing and to be honest a "tool" this big with this much power is one to stay clear of.  Just before the pour as we were waiting for the pump truck, the foundation guy told us some scary stories of pump trucks going wrong.  We kept our distance as he worked.  Maybe that was his point.

But the outcome is that the pour went very smoothly and pretty quick.

 And then after a bit they take the forms of an like magic our foundation was complete.

Breaking Ground

On June 7th 2013, 16 years to the day after Stuart and I were married, we broke ground in Walla Walla, preparing to build our home here. 

Here is Dakota overseeing the unloading of the backhoe. 

 Here is the first scoop, readying our land for the next step.  The foundation.

 Here they are digging the trench for all the utilities.  Squeezing them in between the carport and the trees that we are saving.

 So here is the view of what the storm before the calm looks like.  Meaning that before the house of our dreams becomes a reality we have to live through the messes.  Actually I have to say, they really did a good job staying within the boundaries that I set for them.  Which of course were tight.

Building Permit!

Last week we closed on our construction loan.  Yipee!  We applied for our Building Permit the same day and yesterday we got our building permit. Over the weekend, we worked on building some forms for a small retaining wall at the end of our carport and a small concrete pad out the back door of the little cottage. 


So it's official...and here is the building permit. 

Here is Stuart next to our concrete form.  We figured that if we were going to have a concrete pump truck on site we should do our best to get all the concrete project that we could think of completed.  Our contractor looked at it yesterday and gave us a little advice on how to make it just a bit sturdier.  We will make the corrections this weekend. 

Here is the little 3x5 pad outside the back door of the cottage.  This will replace some rotting board that were sitting directly on the ground.

And the official start.  We met with our contractor yesterday to mark the foundation.  Here is Stuart holding the line while we mark where the footings will be dug.

Another view.  So the diggers will come at the beginning of next week and then hopefully the foundation guys will come right behind!!!!

Dandelion Races

A few weeks ago, Dakota and I took a lovely walk on Whitman Campus and found this wonderful creek where we could race dandelions.  We had a great time. 

6th Grade Track Meet

Wren joined track this spring and has been working hard every day after school training.  So this week and last he had two track meets and set some personal best times as a baseline.

100 meter sprint- 16.29 seconds

Discus 41' 6"

4 x 200 Relay 2 minutes 22 seconds for his team

Long Jump 10 feet 5.5 inches

4 x 100 Relay 1 minute 3.1 seconds

 Here he is running the 100 meter sprint

 

Throwing the Discus.  He came home from the second track meet and asked if he could buy a discus so he could practice over the summer.  Way to go Wren. He has a remarkably long toss.  At his age, he does not do the spinning thing so it is just a long toss.  Way to go.

Passing the baton in the relay.

Long JUMP!