Happy Birthday Jay!!

Just want to wish my husband a very happy 31st birthday today!! :)

Shingling Weekend...Well...Not Quite!

Well as most of you probably already know....we had a whole weekend of shingling our new house planned but decided against doing it ourselves (and by "ourselves" I mean Jay & his friends/brothers) due to the fact that the roof is at a very steep pitch and that we didn't have the safety harnesses that would have been necessary. Not a big deal - the builder's crew will take care of the shingling. We do appreciate those who made the commitment to help do that...

Instead of shingling Friday evening pretty much everyone that was going to help out just came out to the house anyway for pizza and just to hang out and we had sort of a nice evening just giving tours of the house and visiting! Jay and I stayed later than the rest and just took in the nice quiet evening and watched as the lights came on in town with our great view! :)

I had taken Friday off to do some house-related decision-making (plumbing and lighting fixtures). We'll see when we get the estimates back but not a bad experience and not as overwhelming as I thought it might be! The rest of the afternoon I did a "little" shopping for food to get ready for the shingling weekend...Thanks to my mom for helping me out with that!Besides having way too many chips, we were able to freeze or will eat whatever we didn't end up using...so no loss there!!

Saturday Jay and some buddies went golfing in the morning (Jay's first golf outing of the year). Then we went over to Keller Hearth & Home to get some help designing our fireplace. This has been a difficult issue for us due to the way the wall is vaulted right in the middle of the section of wall the fireplace will be on. We went in a little frustrated due to the lack of ideas we could come up with but the lady there came through for us and gave us a good idea as to what to do with the space above the fireplace on that wall! I'm excited to see how it all turns out...I was very grateful that she could help us out with that! Not only that but we got the tile for around the fireplace which goes awesome with the paint colors and furniture and also our exterior rock which we think we will look great with the siding we chose. We walked out of there very happy with what we picked out!

Saturday late afternoon we got invited on Payton & Sydney's pontoon which is currently still awaiting a permanent name. From what I can tell, it's temporary name is "Eagle 5" or else Payton told me they just call it "The Pontoon." :) Ryan, Raumi & Kelsen also joined us and it was a perfect day/evening to be out on the river...we cruised for a bit and then got on a sandbar up north that wasn't too overcrowded and found a spot to sit, visit and eat and where the kids could run around and play. Here are some pictures..

Kelsen, Payton & Sydney playing in the water

Me & Jay enjoying the great evening!
Sydney & Payton playing in the sand...
Kelsen also playing in the sand...got just a BIT on his face! :)
Today we got a lot of errands done and I got some batting practice in. Mike & Sandy also came out and took us out for lunch. We took them out to the house - they had not been out there since April so it really had changed a lot since the last time they were here (at that time it was just dirt!)

Here is the exterior of the house as of Friday evening...as you can see they now have our arches in the garage doors put in. They have also started getting some of the interior plumbing done and will start with the electrical stuff tomorrow!!

Other than that...life keeps flying by! The beagles are good and I'm TRYING to get them out for more runs and walks! Next weekend is McQuades so that should be a fun time as always!

Have a great week everyone!

Framing & Sheeting Pictures

We went back out to the house a couple times this week to take more pictures of the progress they have made. When we went out on Wednesday evening, it had rained all day so we were only able to get pictures from the outside. Things dried up by Friday, so the following pictures are of our house, as of Friday!

They should be done with all the framing and sheeting by Tuesday. The shingles are to arrive Wednesday and then Jay and his crew of helpers are going to do the shingling labor on Friday evening and on Saturday. So far (cross our fingers) the weather forecast calls for 80s and very low chance of rain for both of those days! Hopefully that holds up (at least the no rain part) for the shinglers!

Other than that, we have been busy starting to pick out other things. We have shingles & siding picked out for the exterior. As for the interior, we are working on getting a fireplace designed, plumbing and electrical fixtures picked out, and have been busy trying to pick out paint colors and flooring. (OK it's mostly ME that really has been obsessive about picking out paint, etc. Just ask anyone who sees my numerous painted mat boards in our trailer!)

We went to Nick's first dirt bike (motorcycle) race - not sure on the correct terminology for that - today in Price, ND. I will post some pictures on the Gerving Blog soon! It was fun and Jay & I are happy that we got to be a part of his first race!

Here's the house pictures...

Front of the house (will look better once all the windows are cut out!)

Back (again will look better with the windows cut out)
Walking in from the entry way to the living room
The living room (facing west) with the vaulted ceiling
Looking into the kitchen/dining area (also vaulted) from the living room
Bedroom #2/Den (faces north)
Master bedroom (also with vaulted ceiling)
Bedroom #3
The front of our gigantic garage
Inside our gigantic garage
There are lots more pictures...Again, if you want a tour...let me know!

Also, we want to wish our dads (and all dads we know) a very happy Father's Day tomorrow! We appreciate all you do for us and have done for us our whole lives and for raising us to be who we are today!

Happy Birthday Riley!!

Just wanted to wish our nephew Riley a very happy 7th birthday today!

Main Floor Framing

Alright well here are some picures of the main floor framing that got done this week. These were taken Friday evening.

Master Bedroom

Master Bathroom (whirlpool tub going in under that window).

Dining Room (where the patio doors will be)The Pantry - The most important part of the kitchen, right Mom?
Garage
View of the front of the house

Back of the house - walkout
Hallway coming into the house from the front door - going into the living room.
Living Room - our big windows to take advantage of the view! :)
Living room - in between the smaller windows is where the fireplace will go.

I have quite a few more but those were the best ones I have so far...I will post more as progress is made, of course!

If anyone wants to go out there at any point, let me know. I'm sure I'll be happy to give tours! :)

Birthdays!

First off - happy birthday to my brother Tom today! I won't disclose his age but let's just say there will be a milestone birthday of his coming up in the next couple years!

This picture was taken of us last July after we ran in the first Bully Run road race out in Medora. It was about 95+ degrees at the time! We plowed through and finished the 5k race though!

Today is also my friend & teammate Morgan's birthday (left) and tomorrow is my friend & teammate Murph's birthday (right). This picture was taken at the state softball tournament a couple years ago in Valley City:

Tomorrow is also my friend Heather's birthday! This picture was taken of us last August at her wedding in Omaha! I am pretty sure she promised she was coming home to ND for a visit this summer...so I'm just patiently waiting until she does!

We are going to go out to the house this evening so hopefully I'll have some new updated framing pictures tonight or tomorrow to post on here!

Updated Framing Pictures

Here are some pictures from last night with what they did with the framing yesterday...Not too much new but we have a floor on the main level!

We'll be meeting with the builder tonight up in the same subdivision as our house is in so I'm sure I'll be able to post more pictures after that if any more progress is made today. Seems like it's moving along pretty quickly & smoothly! It's tough (as you probably can tell) to get really close to the house though due to the massive amounts of MUD surrounding it! Oh well I guess we can never complain about rain here!

Weekend Highlights & House Update

Another fun weekend....

Friday after work Jay was at a going-away party for a co-worker...and I met some friends out after work...It was a fun night!

Missy, Dannette, Heidi, Morgan and Me out on the town!

Saturday Jay went back to the farm along with Chris, Ran, Nick to help out with cattle...I know they worked hard - Jay was wrecked when he got home. Jay said they went through about 200 cows and 200 calves...He can correct me if I'm wrong...

Tom & I got out for a run on Saturday afternoon. Though it was only about 75-80 degrees out we both agreed that we aren't quite used to the warm weather. We made it about 4 miles with a couple water breaks...we decided to stay in town and run together although we had thought about going to Medora for the Bully Run. We ran in the first one last July and it was fun...but with the cost of the race entry and the cost of gas...we decided just meeting here to run together might be a better idea!

After that, we had Landon's 4th birthday party at Ran & Julie's. Here are some pictures from the party:

Landon blowing out his candles - note the baseball cake Julie made!

Landon opening some presents.

Taylor taking a couple swings - she's quite a hitter already! Must get that from her mom! (Haha - sorry Ran!)

Tonight we went out to the house to see what progress was accomplished with the framing that they started today. We were pretty surprised to see so much had gotten done in one day!! Here are some new pictures!

A sneak peak at the room that will eventually become the most crucial part of Jay's future "man cave" - the future home theater room:

A view from the south where the walkout patio doors will be:

A view from the east...at each end there will be bedrooms - in the middle will be the family/rec room:

Just another view from the NE:

I'll keep posting pictures of the house as it progresses. Pretty fun to see at least the basement framed out. It will keep going pretty quick I hope...As you can see we got some rain and it's supposed to rain pretty much every day this week...so we'll see what happens!

If the weather cooperates we may be painting the exterior of the trailer and the deck this weekend...Wanted to get that done before we move out. Other than that, we've got some birthdays coming up - both friends and family members!

Well I'm going to call it a night...There is actually a nice soft rainfall that makes it seem quite peaceful around here...Hope you all enjoy the pictures & have a great week!