Wednesday, April 30, 2008

One of those moments....

You know? When you catch your child in some little cute situation? We're at Brandi's mom's house until we get settled in the RV. Another story for another time. And we stick Jada in front of the DVD player so we can get things packed a little faster.

Well, this is what it turns into:





She's getting SOOOO cute and SOOOO big. Oh yeah, really flowing well in that rebellious stage. "No" is answer to 80% of things. Hadn't quite yet figured out how to speak outside of the whining tone. 

She's a blessing. And by blessing, of course, I mean like a bomb of impatience, anger, restlessness, aggrevation and stress going off in your living room. 

She's beautiful as can be.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Looking Like Something







Thursday, April 10, 2008

More Progress & More CONCRETE!!

FYI: Are any of you aggravated by the cycling prices of gasoline and it drives you CRAZY not understanding how it can cost one thing one day and another thing another day? DON'T POUR COPIOUS AMOUNTS OF CONCRETE. We paid $15 a yard MORE for the driveway than we paid for the foundation, which we poured less than 2 weeks ago. And, whatcha gonna do? Anyway....

We spent last weekend getting the forms for the driveway, back deck and storage room ready for concrete. We had concrete ordered to be poured Monday around noon. 


Above: Concrete going into deck forms.

Above: Concrete for deck. We'll have double doors from our master bedroom leading out to a 10X17 ft deck.

Above is the "finished product" just before pouring concrete. We had to build the forms, level out the dirt, put up expansion joints and lay remesh wire to help concrete be stronger. You also have to make sure all the framing and expansion joints are level with each other and you have to put a slight tilt on the whole driveway to make sure water drains off properly. NEAT STUFF! I'm loving learning all this.


Above is the first concrete truck bringing in the first concrete for the driveway.

Above is a pic after the second floor decking is completed. You see the plates laid out for the second story walls. Back left, Jada's room & closet. Back middle, bath tub and shower. I'm standing in the living room. Out of sight: back right, master bedroom and directly to my right is the kitchen. The stair well is behind me to the right.

Above: 12X12 Storage. Very little room in the 1,100 sq.ft. 2nd floor living area.

Above: Most of driveway about done.

Above: 1st wall up on 2nd Story!

Above: Front view. More 2nd story walls erected.

Above: Driveway completed. Most of 2nd story framed up. Should be seeing roof looking structures very soon.

Above: This is the back of the house. The corner of the storage room pad is to the far left. Deck is to the far right, up against the house. 

Friday, April 04, 2008

It's WAININ'!!!!!!

So, me and Jada are leaving Target and it's black outside. Pouring down raining. Jada loves the rain so I said, "You wanna make a run for it?" She quickly responded, "Yeah!"



It's not too clear with the iPhone camera. But, we're drippin' wet. She was kacklin' and laughing away as we ran and she bounced on my hip in one hand and 3 bags in the other. 

Man, she's getting soooo big...... 

All too soon she'll be gone. All grown up. Probably married to some Ohlerking kid or something.

HEEE-HEEE-HEEE-HEEE

Oh yea, arranged marriages are coming back, baby!!!

First Floor Nearly Completed

Mike Thibeau and his crew are rollin'!! I could not have imagined this much would be completed in just 4 days. He's been very interactive and making sure we're on the same page with aspects of construction that are unclear. He's very flexible and has make several time saving and money saving suggestions and recommended good quality construction suggestions.

Below is the framing completed and outer sheeting or sheathing. I've hear it said both ways....


I just thought I was done swinging a mall and driving stakes when we formed the foundation. But, now we have driveways to frame. We're starting to see it come together more with the 3 doors for the 3 car garage.

Got the windows and doors cut out. Also started on the "trusses"? Some engineered supports for 2nd floor support.

Covering the front of the first floor. None of the pics show it, but they also installed the stairs leading to the second floor. They're all the way to the right in the picture below.

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Last night at work

Man, what a way to go out with a BANG!! As always, Shell Chemical took good care of me. March 16th marked my 10 year anniversary at the plant. They give you the option to go out to a nice dinner with the bosses or go to the grocery store and feed your shift. Me and my buddy Manuel hired on together so we combined our dinners and had a FEAST Monday night.

Below, is the beginnings of a Crawfish A-2-Fay. That would be the topping for the fried Shrimp.

Below is the Ribeye steaks we'd be feasting on. We sauteed some mushrooms, onions and bellpeppers to go with it.

This was the most kickin' appetizer! BBQ Shrimp, wrapped with bacon and basted in a honey-butter sauce.

Below is the other side dish of boiled shrimp.

I had the honor of BBQ's the Ribeyes. I didn't mind at all cooking for myself.

Here's the finished dinner. We through in a salad and some Texas Toast. Not that we had any room for it, but we had Blue Bell Ice Cream and Turtle Cheesecake for dessert.


I can't say enough about the past 10 years at Shell Chemical. Great company, great people, great work environment and culture. As much as I'm looking forward to the future, I'll definitely miss the people at Shell Chemical. 

It was a great season of our lives there. It was an honor working with the men and women there. Absolutely no regrets. 

Construction Update

We had alot of progress since last post. We finished forming the foundation, digging footings, spraying for pest control, laying plastic, laying cable for post tension slab, installing floating forms Thursday. 

We were able to find a concrete company that could deliver for us Saturday morning. They gave us the old last minute, Saturday morning, "I know you want this concrete real bad before the rain" price....

So, we poured the concrete Saturday morning and only had a 45 second sprinkle right after the last truck pulled out. The finishers did a great job. We even had a little extra concrete for the in laws to pour a boat shed slab for their Express Bass Boat.

Even after that special price they gave us, they still showed up 1 hour 15 minutes late. I'm not bitter.....

Truck pulls up right on time. (in "everything is an hour and fifteen minutes late" world)

First concrete hits the slab.

After filling in the higher elevated living area, they started filling the floating forms, then the footings.


Filling up the rest of the foundation.

Wet Concrete

Dried Concrete


Mike Thibeau, old high school buddy, was ready with his crew to start framing Tuesday morning. They showed up and really made a lot more progress than I expected. We partially wrecked the forms and the framers usually do that. So, that saved them some time. They were able to frame most of the bottom floor. We're expecting to be done in 2-3 weeks with little weather problems.

First wall goes up!

Two Walls!

Three Walls!

FourWalls! Aah-ah-ah-ah!!!