A weekend of "Firsts"

We celebrated a few landmark occasions this weekend. The 1st first was Spencer's 1st birthday. This is a big enough deal that it deserves its own post. The 2nd first was that Troy and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary.I don't know why these are so small, maybe because they're scanned. That's ok, you won't see any of our blemishes and we will look like we have perfect skin. We took the liberty of doing 2 more firsts to celebrate: we went to our first movie since Timmy was born. We saw Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. We tried and tried, but honestly cannot remember the last movie we saw in in theaters. We remember seeing the Lord of the Rings: Return of the Kings on Christmas day, 2003. The other first: we spent our first overnight without the kids. The had a slumber party at Grandma and Pa's house while we spend the night at Super 8. I wanted to stay at the Ramada because I haven't stayed there overnight since they purchased it in 2005. I figured it was about time. Besides, they have a pool and hot tub and it is a lot bigger and fancier. But, because of our sewer situation, we decided to keep a room at Super 8 so we can come to shower at our convenience; it is the closest to our house. After the movie we went to Sonic and got milk shakes, and then checked in for the night. I was so relieved to finally have a shower. I'm a little embarrassed to admit it had been 3 days since my last shower. Happy Anniversary to us!

Digging the basement today

Which first- the good or bad news?

Well, the good news is that 1 the excavators came out this morning to dig the basement.
2 We also had out dumpster hauled away this morning. It was loaded to the brim.

And 3 we got a port-a-potty. It is literally inches from my front door. (I am rolling my eyes at the hilarity of it all.) My life and house are chaotically crazy. The bad news is that after digging a very short time, they hit water. I don't mean broke a pipe; I mean hit the water table. I guess in our area is is very close to the surface- only about 6 feet down. We needed to dig 9 feet deep for the footings and foundation walls. So, at this point, we are waiting to see how to proceed. We have a few options we're considering at this point. Any suggestions? Any sympathetic comments would be appreciated.

One more thing. A huge THANKS to Troy's parents and 2 youngest sisters who came over last night and helped finish the prep work. They stayed really late- until the whole house was staked off and ready to dig. another Thank You to Parker, who also helped tear out the roof. Last night, and Monday he helped us finish demolishing the shed.

Back Porch: Before and After

Here is a before and after shot of our back porch. I hope I don't have to label which is which!

It's beginning to smell a lot like Christmas

In addition to breaking out all the concrete this weekend, we tore out some shrubs and a planter box from the front porch. I am not sure what type of plant it was. Some sort of evergreen whose scent reminded me of pine trees when I walked by.
We tore them out by wrapping a chain around the base of the trunks and pulling them with the Cat. They came out roots and all, like puling weeds.
Troy was as happy as a kid on Christmas. He just loves driving Mechanical things. So do the boys- just like their dad.
I don't know why I am posting this ridiculous picture, but this is a shot Troy took from the drivers seat of the Cat while I was chaining up the trunks. You can see the scoop in the top of the picture.
I always liked those shrubs, but wasn't as sad to see them gone as the fruit trees. In fact, I think I like the house better than when the planter box was there.
Here's what the front of the house looks like today. See the small patch of green grass? My whole lawn looked like that yesterday morning. It is amazing how much havoc a tractor can wreck on a lawn in only a few hours. Oh, well, I guess Troy won't have to worry about mowing the lawn this summer. Lucky guy.

Men and Tractors

What is is about tractors and machines that men and boys just can't help but love? My uncle Dan let us borrow his big Cat on Saturday, so we could finish the concrete project. Here are some pictures of all the fun.
Mom and the boys hanging out in the cab.
Troy's first shot at breaking out the cement. There was even rebar in the sidewalk. Amazing. Whoever built this house wanted it to last. (It didn't.) Notice that there is still grass on the lawn. By the end of the day, you'd never guess there had been grass that morning. Troy and the boys. He had to stop every so often to let Timmy ride with him. But, Timmy only lasted a short time before he needed a break and wanted to climb out again.Thanks again, Uncle Dan! We not only had fun, but got a lot done, too.
Not only is the cement gone, so is the grass!A close-up shot of me and my little boys. You should have seen how excited they were.The Cat did a good job of ripping out more than concrete.
Brett, our brother in-law wanted in on the fun, too.

Smashing up the back porch

The biggest project we undertook was to demolish our back porch ourselves. The bids we got from contractors ranged from $2,000 to almost $5,000 to do the work shown below. We decided to save the money and do it ourselves. (I'll admit, Troy did a huge majority of the work.) After this job, Troy said he was sure glad he didn't work building railroad tracks. He was sore and exhausted at the end of every day. To give a rough estimate, he broke out over 30,000 pounds of concrete on this job. Troy, you are awesome. I love you!Troy started breaking out the concrete after work one Monday. It took us nearly 2 weeks to get it completely taken out. It was a huge job.Troy thought it might save time to rent a jackhammer, but it wasn't any faster, so he returned it and went back to the sledgehammerSee! I really do help. Here I am shoveling tar paper off the concrete roof.A tired, proud Troy surveys his accomplishment. All that is left is the rebar skeleton. We recycled all the steel and made a whopping $22.50. Woo hooOur friend Parker offered to help bash out some cement, and we took him up on it. Warning to other friends: Don't offer to help unless you mean it. Ha ha :)Troy climbing up the rebar to attach the chain to the posts so he can knock them overUsing the Cat to pull down the cement pillars. Troy said they came down like toothpicks. Those tractors are strong!Troy used the Cat Tractor to pull up the porch, too. Now all we have is a lot of dirt. The windows of the house really aren't boarded up -- that was just to protect the glass from all the debris.

A rainy, muddy, wonderful Memorial day

Although it looks like we played all day, we really spent most of Memorial Day tearing down the rest of the shed. This was just the highlight of the day. It is nice to spend 4 days home with Daddy. We had a very productive weekend. Check back to see pictures of everything we accomplished.

Peek-A-Boo
Timmy loves to be outside, so we got on his rain gear: Umbrella, hood, and galoshes and he stood on the roof and watched Troy. (Don't worry- the roof was on the ground.)
He is such a Daddy's Boy!
After lunch, he abandoned the rain gear, and decided to play in the mud puddles barefoot. He was enthralled. He spent nearly an hour splashing and playing.
His pants were wet with muddy water above the knees when he finally came in the house.
Aren't life simple pleasures a joy to watch kids discover?
The texture of oozing, gooey mud is one even pictures can't adwquately describe.
I love this picture because I actually captured the "splash" as he jumped in. Click on the picture if you want to marvel at my Amazing photography skills.
I thought this was so cute I wanted to get it on video, so I took a video of both boys in the mud. We'll see if I am able to upload it. Videos are so difficult for me to figure out. *sigh*
The bath water after this episode was about the same color as the mud puddle in the pictures; even with the pre-bath hose down.

Taking a Break

After working hard in the hot sun, we decided we had earned a slurpee break, so we sat in the shade a took a breather.

Mom sharing her BIG one with Timmy
Dad and Tim relaxing on the lawn
Spencer was actually asleep during our "break" but I wanted a picture of him anyway
This is just a silly picture of me with bright red lips from the Slurpee. Julie said there weren't enough pictures of me. She's right, I'm always the one snapping the pictures!

Timber!

Last weekend, we cut down our trees. It was a sad, sad, day for me. I lost 2 mature, fruit-bearing apple trees, a delicious peach, and a year-old apple tree I received as a graduation present last year. Troy wasn't as sad, though. He just loves "playing" with his chainsaw. We filled up 3 big truckloads and dumped them at the city cleanup site. There was a free dump day. Lucky us! Here are some of the pictures.
Spencer wanting to push the dolly like his big brother
Timmy taking the firewood to the trucks

Loading up the truck
Two loads of tree branches getting unloaded. We also dumped the piles of firewood you saw earlier on this post
One of the apple trees we cut down
Troy getting his chainsaw going after it sat all fall and winter. Not an easy task!