Uncle Nate Comes Home

On Wed July 22, 2015 Elder Nathan Norr returned to Las Vegas after serving 2 years for the Lord in the Mexico City Mission. We could finally fill our chart. The wall looks quite bare without this poster on it. We weren't able to be at at the airport with everything going on with the house but we were really excited to go visit on Friday for the weekend. 

Framing Day 2--July 21

Tuesday was another great day filled with framing. Matt even got some extra help along with Chris and Jon. Ben and Nick were able to spend most of the day up helping them. Its amazing what they can get done with a few extra guys that know what they are doing. About 5 pm the girls and I headed their way with dinner. Just as we got to the top of the canyon I heard a strange noise and pulled over to see what it was. As I was looking for a place to pull off my tire pressure sensor went off and I knew something wasn't good. I got out and saw that my right rear tire was completely flat and blowing more out pretty loudly. I immediately called Matt to come rescue me and went to work getting the jack out and the suburban up in the air. I am more than capable of changing a tire but I knew that it would probably take me longer by myself and I wanted the dinner to still be at least warm when the boys ate it. PS I don't think I realized how much work it was going to be fore me when Matt decided to frame the house...naive...probably but hey I have never done this before. Dinner takes up a pretty good portion of my day by the time I make dinner, pack all the stuff to eat it, load everyone up, drive there, eat, visit, and help some it is usually 3 hours at least. Some days this is way easier than others depending on how the rest of my day has gone. But its a great chance for the girls and I to see Matt since he has been working 16 hour days and to feed and thank the people that have come to help us out. They were able to finish framing the bearing walls in the basement and get all the joists on before the sun went down.

North view
Did you notice half of the dirt is missing?!? A developer in a nearby development wants all of it for a house they are building. They came today and took half and will be back for the rest of it tomorrow! The only problem is I now have no hill to stand on to take pictures but I do have a backyard now!

 North West corner

 South west corner

 South West Corner

 South West Corner

 South East Corner

 Meet Olly he is our soon to be neighbors dog and our girls are so in love with him. He is a Australian Labradoodle. He is the sweetest/softest thing ever. He was very curious about Emery and wanted to check her out. Emery wasn't sure what to think of this fluffy friend but didn't seem to mind him.

We are getting into a routine of going to the lot each evening to take dinner. After we eat the girl help clean up and now that we have a dumpster they love to clean up all the trash from the day. I have started sweeping the basement and cleaning up random nails and such. I don't think my kids have ever gotten this dirty consistently but when they are having so much fun how can you blame them. Gracie's face last night was so filthy.

The favorite thing of collecting the trash is climbing the ladder on the dumpster to put it in.

Framing Day 1--Mon July 20

Monday was a day we have been anxiously waiting for each day the house is taking on a better shape of what the end product will look like. Monday morning came and it was a bit of a downer...it was pouring, Matt, Chris, and Jon headed to the lot about 5:45 am after a brief stop to Home Depot they made it to the lot shortly after 6. They did their best to get things started but the rain really slowed them down. By 9:30 they had retreated back to our house for dry and warmer clothes and then headed back to the lot. By 11 am the rain was gone and the sun came out. The weather this week is in the mid 80s...I'm so glad the 102 degree days are gone at least while we are framing. By the time the girls and I got up there to take the boys dinner they had made some good progress despite the weather. Hallie was pretty excited to see her room all framed in.

 Due to the rain they had set up the "sunshade" to help protect the tools it ended up working out pretty good for the for both rain and shine.

 In the background you can see the mountains of dirt we have in the back still! We have used all that we need to back fill and are unsure as to what we will do with the rest of it. I hope we can get rid of it so we don't have to pay to move it.

Matt was also worried about the generators putting out enough power to run all of their equipment but luckily Monday morning Rocky Mountain showed up to hook it up and in less than 5 minutes we had power and were up and running. They also hooked up the utilities, finished back filling, and delivered the dumpster.

Let the Framing Begin

Saturday afternoon/evening Matt was able to start some of the framing process. He got the bolts into the concrete and put down the sill plates. This way we will be ready for the truss company to come Monday morning and measure for the trusses. This man of mine is pretty amazing and continues to impress me everyday. 

 Saturday afternoon we went up to take Matt some food and cold waters. While we were there we were able to help with some measurements and stuff. Emery also helped by sleeping in the shade so we could get some work done. This is about the only shade there was...lol

 The girls also got a lot of hill climbing in...which is totally there favorite! They ask everyday if we are going to the lot to play. I can't wait til they can run around up there everyday.

We are closer now than we ever have been to achieving this dream. While we were having some food Matt said I think it will be really cool to say we designed and built this house together....so do I babes so do I.

Backfill, Gravel, and Slab!!

Friday after a plumbing inspection we were able to move forward with the work. The excavator back filled and put the gravel down in preparation for the concrete slab to be poured. Saturday morning bright and early Matt met the concrete guys just before 6 am and they wasted no time getting to work. And by 10:30 am they had all the concrete poured and by 1:30 pm they were completely finished. Here are some pictures of the concrete pouring in action

 Garage

 Garage

 Concrete Complete South East Corner

 South side(back of house)

 Back side with Garage

 North West Corner

 South West Corner

 If you look closely I was taking a picture of Gracie and Hallie is totally posed in the background

 Southwest...my favorite view but really there isn't a bad one

 Then after the concrete had a couple hours to dry the concrete cutter came to cut the garage concrete to                                                                           help with cracking

 The lumber company also delivered most of our lumber Saturday so we will be ready to frame first thing Monday morning

 North Side

I am so impressed with how smoothly this week has gone and can only hope the remainder of our project goes this well. We made a ton of progress this week. It really is coming together.

Waterproofing & Underground Plumbing Thurs July 16th

Wed July 15th they stripped the forms for the concrete and the following morning the rough plumbing was completed. The plumber ran into some pretty hard dirt and since they haven't hooked up our temp power yet I ran the generators up to them so they could run the jack hammer. Nic and the kids were here so we could do some shopping but instead we went for a ride to see the lot. Also Thursday afternoon the waterproofing was put in place. Things are really starting to take shape. 

Northeast corner aka Halllie bedroom

 South side

 Garage

 Main house

 South West corner

 North West Corner

 All of our kiddos they thought the back hoe was pretty cool

 After delivering the generators and checking out the progress we headed back to our house to cool off and do some swimming.

 Then the kids all found the goggles. They had a ball playing with each other

This house is making life a little crazy right now but I think/hope it will all be worth it when we are done. And we are doing our best to have a good time and make memories along the way