A veiw from the back.

This is the back side of the house. This side faces all of the view. On the left is our bedroom.

A roof over our heads

Well everybody needs a roof over their heads and we are no exception. Today was a beautiful day here in Texas. Our framers took the day off so we took advantage of that and showed it to some friends. There are still alot of bracing boards inside to hit your head on so to say the least you have to be careful. Our roof got started on Friday and is about 1/4 of the way done. In this picture you are looking at the front of the house. The garage is on the left and the front door is the big opening in the center.

Here you go Amy

My baby sister wanted an overall photo so here it is. Of coarse this is standing out by the road looking at the front of the house. You will notice that the roof is not yet on the house. The framers will start working on that tommorrow. It would have gotten started today except that Hingbothams Lumber store can not seem to get the lumber there when needed.

From our house to yours, Merry Christmas!

Hope you all are having a wonderful Christmas. We are very thankful to God for all blessings this year!

Favorite of Patricia

We just loved this picture of Patricia. She is sitting in her window. I hope in later years she doesn't sneak out these very windows.

And then there was a house

Today is Sunday and since my last blog alot has happened. The framers arrived on Thursday Morning and yesterday you could see the rooms of the house. It is very exciting. We got to walk through the whole thing. They have started to work on the roof and paneling the outside. We spent all day moving a pile of dirt from the front door. Yes it was a very big pile of dirt. You literally had to climb over it to get to the front door area. It was driving us crazy so we took care of it. Now it looks so "inviting" as Matt says. He is so funny as he gets so excited.

Leaving comments

I have figured out how to allow comments without having to have an account. If you would like to leave a comment, click on comment and on the right hand side type your comment or message. Then scroll down and click anonymous. Please leave your name in your comment though or I won't know who is commenting!

Working thru the night

It is 9:15 pm here and we are just getting home from the house site. The guys from Mata concrete are still out there. They told us it would be midnight before they leave the concrete. The concrete itself has been very slow in drying. From a owner point that is very good. It will have fewer cracks and be much stonger than a foundation that dries in two hours. It is however harder on the concrete crew. These guys have been at the house site since 6:30 am. As I count it that will be 17 1/2 hours. They told us they will not leave until it is perfect. I believe them. We delivered supper to them and was thrilled that they allowed us to do so. I can not say enough good things about them. They are first class all the way!

Concrete is poured

The concrete trucks started arriving this morning before 8am. It took over 7 truck loads of concrete. That equals out to be 75 yards of the liquid gold. This picture was taken on my lunch hour. Notice how shiny it is that is because it is very much still wet.

Concrete tomorrow

Well it has been a few days since my last posting. The weather was naste here last week so we were slowed just a bit. That's ok though. Today the Concrete guys from Mata Concrete were on site and laid the rebar for the fondation. This crew of six guys work so hard seems like they never take a break. I know have a new respect for what it takes to make a house. Tommorrow they will pour the concrete and our slab will be complete. Randy our builder tells Matt that the framing crew will be on site Thursday morning. Now that is fast. I would like to thank those of you who have posted comments. It means so much to us that you take the time to give us your opinion or say an encouraging word.

Naste day for building

Today has been truely naste day for building. It has been cold, rainy and the fog was so thick I couldn't see the Courthouse when I left work. Better weather is hopefully coming. Amy my great sister asked me to put a web site where she can look at the brick. Here it is little sis- go to http://www.bricktour.com/ scroll down to where it lists the brick then click on Victoria brick. You can look at the brick and a house that is done in the brick. Our motar will be a darker grey. Everyone tell me what you think.

What difference a day makes

Yesterday was a beautiful Texas day but not today. The tempature had drop some 40 degrees and it is raining. The plumbing has come to a halt as we watch the weather. It is suppose to rain for 3 days we will hope not. I guess a good thing is with all the rain we were able to burn a brush pile.

Plumbing goes in

Saturday our plumbers arrived. These two guys were real nice and took time out to visit with us for a few minutes. We got to decide where we wanted the outside spigots. I hadn't even thought anything about it, but we quickly figured it out. Friday night we picked out our bricks. That was a lesson in itself. Basically you go to the brick store and look at their samples and pick the ones you are interest in. Then comes the part that blows my mind- they send you to houses that have that same brick. These are houses the people are living in. You just pull up out front and gawk at their houses. I'm glad that we did though because the one we thought we would go with look terrible and I would have been very unhappy with it. We loved the first brick that we saw on the house and have decided to go with it.

Waiting on the plumber

The last few days have just been waiting. The plumber is coming out on Saturday to run the pipes in the pad so they can pour the foundation. From my understanding they will be pouring the foundation on Monday or Tuesday and the framers may be there on Wednesday. Our builder does not mess around. We will be going to Waco tommorrow to pick out the brick. We have a good idea of what we want, we just want to see it in person to be certain. After all brick is not something you can change.

A neat photo

Got Concrete???

One of Patricia's favorite things is to go to the house site after school. Today was another busy at the site. Mata Concrete guys were there at 8:00 am working this morning. Matt called me at 8:30 all excited because a concrete truck had just pulled up. This morning the pylons were poured and the forms for the foundation were put in place. Our builder decided that it was best to dig a number of 6 feet holes into the earth and pour them full of concrete, creating pylons. More concrete will be poured as a slab and tie everything together. In the picture above Patricia is standing in what will soon be her room beside one of the footer ditches. Everything is so exciting.

Dirt, Dirt and More Dirt

Today was another day of dirt work. We went to the house site on my lunch and checked out the progress. It takes alot of time to pack the pad and alot of work. So far so good.

Dirt smells GOOD!

Yesterday was a very big day for us. We signed the intern loan paper and broke ground almost at the same time. The dozer started pushing dirt about 8:30 yesterday morning and the guy worked until almost 4:30pm. We were very impressed with the job he is doing. His company I believe is called Robert's Dozing and I would recommend him. Only bad thing was that he found a rattlesnake. This was after he had ran over it. This will make our 3rd one that we have killed or found dead. The guy was so nice that he made sure he buried it so I wouldn't have to see it again. Matt told him how scared I am of snakes.

Matt spent most of his day yesterday at the house site watching. When I asked him what he was doing out there he said "Just watching and smelling the dirt. Dirt smells GOOD." I have a sneaky feeling he was wishing he was the one on the dozer. He took Patricia out after school and they walked and talked about all the things they are intending on planting. They are so much alike in that aspect. I'll download some pictures tonight.

Patricia is ready

I thought this was a great picture of Patricia on the dozer. You can see the huge clouds in the background. The one thing about our house site is that the sky is never ending.

Waiting on rain

I took this photo earlier today and as you can tell it is rainy. The stakes you can see are the actual corners of the house. Matt had a great time looking over the dozer or loader as he explained to me. Hopefully tomorrow will bring better weather.

Rain, Rain Go Away

It has not rained in Texas for over two and half months. The bulldozer shows up to do work and it starts raining. Go figure! This week is slotted to be a very big week for us on the house building. On Monday we get the final approval from the Court and on Tuesday we close on the interm loan. Dirt work is suppose to be starting but like I said earlier rain is proably going to be a problem. My builder tells me we should be dried in by Christmas. I don't see how but I'll still pray about it. Hopefully some pics will be coming soon.

Baby Steps

Matt, Patricia and I welcome you to our blog. I decided to do this to allow all our friends and family to keep up with our house building, to welcome your comments and of course words of encouragement. I want to start this blog with a little bit of history. In August 2004 we purchased the orginal 24.508 acres of land with the hope of someday building a home on it. Matt went off to Iraq and as many of you know came home with a injured back. To say the least our hopes and dreams changed somewhat. At first we were just going to sell the whole place because he couldn't take care of the farming type chores anymore. But little by little God revealed to us we could still have our dream, just maybe not the way we had planned but the way he had planned all along.

Enough for history, here is where we are as of today. We have buyers for two lots of our land. We are keeping the 3 tract. The process of selling the lots has been harder than we had planned for but we are almost there. We go for our final plat approval on November 26, 2007 and we are excited. Today we met with the builder out at the land and decided how far to set the house from the road. It was funny to watch Patricia walk off where her room will be and sit down in what will be her room. She was pretending she was looking out her window. I plan to take some pictures tommorrow of the land before they start construction. I hope you will enjoy this blog as we go. We thought for many of you who are hundreds of miles away it will let you be and see whats going on in our world.

Bobbie