Texas Aug 2009

Wow, that vacation went fast!

This year we drove down to Port Aransas, Texas. We left Saturday, August 15 about 8a, then stopped in Kansas City to visit my cousins and Aunt and families. They had a great meal waiting for us and the boys got to expend some energy on a neighbor's trampoline. We then continued on at 9p and reached Corpus Christi about 10am. We couldn't get into our condo until 4p, so we headed to lunch, Academy (a fishing store), the pool and shopping. Then we had 9 days of pool, beach and fishing. We had great weather (no storms this year) and the fishing was better than the last 2 years. We headed home just like we came, and made it there safe and sound. We're all already thinking of next year. Lucky Bret and Connor will head back in October for a long fishing weekend with Josh and Nolan (Bret's brother and nephew). Enjoy the pictures! More pictures of the new house very soon!


Brendan and Cousin Morgan


Brendan, Morgan and Connor


Sea turtle at the jetty

Bailey and Morgan (cousins) with Maren







Nolan with his bluefish



Nolan and Connor fishing


Nolan fishing at sunrise


Nolan's bonnet head shark


Josh, Nolan and the shark


Me and Maren with her black tip shark


Brendan and his bluefish


Me with my first spanish mackerel


Me and the kids with my second (and bigger) spanish mackerel


Connor with his spanish mackerel


Maren, Morgan and Bailey


Maren, Bailey and Brendan




Bailey, Maren and Brendan at the jetty



Me being silly!

Windows Delivered!

While Maren and I were in Wyoming, the windows were delivered. Some have even been installed! There is still a lot of framing to do before the roof is done, but it's great to see some progress. I guess it rained most of the time that we were gone.


Windows are in on the end of the garage


The front of the house is coming together


Bret walking out of the garage

TRUSSES!

Most of the trusses went up this week. They needed the crane to put up 2 huge beams that support the left side of the second floor. So, they put those up and now they can finish framing the second floor. Then they put the garage and great room/dining room trusses up. They will finish framing the entry/stairway and second floor next week and hope to have the crane back to finish up the trusses. They also plan to pour the concrete floors in the lower level and garage. I'm working on getting the power and phone into the site. Yikes, that's a kid's college fund! I'm still working with my designer to pick stuff out AND stay in budget--that's the hard part. She says that I'm doing remarkably well even though I feel like everything is over. Bret and I are trying to contain the overage chaos. Enjoy the pics! More soon!


Front of garage with bonus room above. I can't wait for those 10' doors so I don't worry about banging the Suburban on the garage or Bret's car!


Only one wall is framed on the entry/stairway (and it's not done yet). The door on the left is the door into the mudroom (and there'll be a transom window to the right of it). The small square one is the powder room.


Holy cow it's high! But just wait until the second floor trusses are on!

First floor walls started

This is the house from the back yard with the dining room patio door on the left, then kitchen window, then master bedroom.

Maren and Sadie in front of the house. The door from the mudroom to the garage is on the far left, with the master bedroom, kitchen window, dining room patio door and window on the right.

First Floor Trusses are on!

The basement with the trusses on.

The other half of the basement.

The top side

The sub floor is going on.

The Start of Framing

The builder and his 2 co-workers starting to frame the basement walkout wall.



The floor trusses for the whole house

Ground Source Heat Pump

They had to dig a really big hole (100' x 50' x 8' deep) to put in the 8 coils of tubing needed for the ground source heat pump. It will eventually turn into our back yard/soccer field.


1/3 of the giant hole


One of the 8 coils