We have a floor!

I know these pictures are pretty mundane but to me they are progress! Today we poured the concrete for the basement floor which means the next step is framing. We needed some extra help for the concrete so Brian asked a few of our neighbors (offering to pay them of course.) They came out at 5:30am to help and then wouldn't take the money. People amaze me with there generosity sometimes! Tomorrow we are having are Thursday night dinner group with some new friends we have made including some of our neighbors. We look forward to the opportunity to get together and get to know them better. We also have a couple coming that heard about our church through some marketing we did. That should be fun to meet them as well. On Friday, we are heading back to Lewiston to pack up the stuff we left at our house and meet some prospective renters. We have not sold the house yet and think this is the direction God is leading us...we appreciate any prayers to help is make the right decision! We look forward to seeing all of our friends in Lewiston!

Nacho night!

Our great friends, Jamie and Eric had started the search for the best nachos in Missoula before we got here and invited us to join them and another couple last week to try a new restaurant, Sean Kelly's. They do have nachos sometimes but didn't the night we went. The food was still fabulous and the dessert was even better. For those of you that know Jamie she is a dessert connoisseur. And that's ok because she works out for a living (personal trainer and aerobics teacher)! We had a great time visiting with them and the other couple. Since moving we have met so many great people! We are still missing our Lewiston friends and keep trying to bribe them to come visit! I thought maybe this little post about all of the fabulous restaurants might entice some! Speaking of eating dessert and nachos, today we are going to check out the YMCA. They have a pretty large facility here and so we thought we might join! They have lots of activities for the kids as well as a great workout facility for adults.

Splash Montana

We celebrated the end of our 2 weeks of swim lessons by staying at Splash Montana for the day. It was torture on the kids having to have lessons and then packing up to leave...longingly looking at the waterslides wishing they could stay and play! I had mentioned in an earlier post how the waterpark is only $2.75 for kids which is a great deal. I did however find our they you can't bring in your own food and that is where they get the $ back that they lose on admission. Oh well, you can't put a price on fun, can you? The kids loved all parts of the waterpark, the slides, the lazy river and especially the log walk. There are no pictures of Brock because I took him to the daycare before we went. The idea of taking 4 children by myself to the waterpark was a little much :o)

Basement Walls are up!

Our future basement ~ Abby's bedroom and the boy's bedroom.

The front of the basement. This will all eventually be buried by fill dirt...lots and lots of fill dirt.

Our concrete walls have been poured. Next we will have basement plumbing and the basement floor. Things are moving along and we are excited for the framing to begin! I'll continue to post pictures as the house progresses!

The footings are poured!

Brian and Dave (our builder) hard at work!

Our firm foundation!

I know this isn't very exciting stuff for some people but for us it is progress! And yes Jesus is our foundation but next to that our house will be on the firmest foundation in Missoula! Truly! For some reason the county required us to jump through all sorts of hoops and make the footings extra wide and deeper than usual. When the inspector showed up, she was blown away that they had required that. She said the only place she had seen this kind of foundation requirement was in Seattle on very steep hills. We are trying to see this as a positive instead of thinking that we just spent thousands unnecessarily :o) At least we know our house is staying put and not sliding anywhere!

Swim lessons begin!

We just started swim lessons today. The kids are taking lessons at Splash Montana, our local outdoor water park for the next two weeks. They were a little hesitant to go, especially Riley, as you can tell by the look in his picture. But once we got there and they started lessons they really enjoyed it. They class format was great. They moved the kids to different areas to swim which included swimming around the lazy river. Jordan thought that was pretty cool. I enjoyed the some semi-quiet time while they were in the water from 10:00-10:45 (I dropped Brock off at busy hands, a local drop off daycare that he loves!) I might even take a book and get to read the next few days! That would be a treat! We are also planning on staying at the park after lessons a couple days so the kids could play.

The new house begins!

Before the digging started! We had waited so long to get our building permits for this house, I felt like I had to document every step of the building process so here is the lot when we were mapping out where the house would sit. I also took a picture of the view from the lot. Missoula sits in a valley so we pretty much have a 360° view of the mountains around our house.


The kids on the big tractor! I think they played they would have played on it for the whole day if we would have let them.


Brock was so excited to sit in the tractor. I couldn't quite get a smile out of him, he just sat there with a blank look on his face...I think he was in shock!


Once the house was a mapped out, the digging started. Most of the digging is done now and they are starting to build forms to pour concrete. It is so exciting to watch the process! Hopefully I will be better about updating this blog and I will keep you posted on the process!