New School Year

We had fireworks at the College last night and I was able to get a few shots. Thought I would share. Hope everyone is well. Jesus Saves!!!

Cement

After almost a month of various delays (My back, a week of monsoon like rain and a Trinidad Cement Shortage) Kenny and his crew were able to get the floor poured this Friday. They did their normal amazing job and we will finally be able to move up.
Not expecting all of the delays we have been ordering everything else on schedule and now have a pile of materials stacked all over the place. I think we have everything on site to totally enclose the house. Trusses, Floor Joists, beams, 2x4s, 2x6s, sheeting, shingles, lathe. It is all here.
I hope this means the blog posts will be coming faster as we should pick up some speed now. I still think we can be enclosed before the weather gets crazy cold.
Other news is we start classes on Monday. The sports kids are already back and it feels like school again. Dad and I will call two Football games in the next week. I guess summer is over.
Melissa passed her place test for music. She can now teach k-12 English and music. She will start part time at Hoehne after Labor Day.
Finally, my back is recovering. Not 100% yet but improving.

Update

I want to start by telling everyone who has been praying for me that the prayers have worked. I don't need back surgery at this time and will be able to keep working on the house after a little physical therapy. For those who didn't know I herniated a disk in my back hauling a load of dirt into the basement two weeks ago. I was immobile for a couple of days, got an MRI which revealed a lot of damage. I went to a specialist in Denver last week and his recommendation is just to try and rehab it. He said it would never be 100% but I should be able to keep the damage in control.
It will be good to get back to work. Thankfully we are still making progress without me. Melissa and her dad got the plumbing done and it passed inspection today. Dad and Woody moved a few tons of dirt and gravel in and are almost ready to turn things over to Kenny to finish the floor. Prayerfully we will be working on the upstairs before September.
Again, thanks for all of the prayer! GOD IS GREAT!!!

The Butterfly Farm

Mara recently got a present from her Nana that let her raise her own butterflies. Mara took good care of them and raised five butterflies. She released them today. It was a lot of fun for her and she wants to do it again.
Other than moving some dirt we took the weekend off at the house. Back to work on Monday!

Walls Complete!

Well that was a bit of a process! The basement walls are up and full of concrete. We used a pump truck and got them filled nice and solid.
That is just the final step in what was a long-hard week. We worked a ton of hours to get it braced and ready. We even got my brother here to help. We worked all day on Wednesday and into the dark on Thursday. We were at it before the sun came up on Friday (sunrise picture) and were ready to pour right on time. The pour went great (no blowouts) and now we have solid walls. We plan on taking a very short break, this weekend i guess, before getting the basement floor ready to pour.
In other news we got the new website online.

Check it out at www.trinidadstate.edu

the sports section isn't complete so I am still using my old pages but other than that it is a go.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Progress, tired progress

It was a hot one today but we still got quite a bit done. Melissa and her dad got the septic pipe into the basement as well as a conduit for the electrical line.
Dad and I got the rest of the foam up. We even had mom out helping carry Styrofoam around and getting us tools.
We hope to pour the cement in on Friday and then we are moving up.
Tired but happy today!

More basement work

Dad and Uncle George got the window and door bucks built on Tuesday so we hit it hard today. I took the day off from the new job. First day off in a long time. Dad, Melissa and I got the front wall all the way up and got all four windows installed. I'm thinking of adding a fifth just to slow down the process. The door will be a challenge we tackle later this week. For now we are all exhausted.
Oh, by the way, the new job I keep talking about is still at the college. I am now the Web Designer/Web Developer. Not much changes work wise except I am in charge to the whole web site instead of just the sports section. Our new web site will be online soon so I will let you all know so you can see how I've spent my summer.