More Walls

Concrete Forms

One foot thick conrecte walls make up the first floor.

Not Just Ordinary Footings

We Got It!

We finally got our building permit!!!

The 15 month countdown begins today! February 6, 2010... wow! That sounds so far away. I am sure it will go by quickly though.

Way Over Due Picture of...

DIRT! Yep, I am posting yet another picture of dirt! But this time it is real progress toward our home. Here is a week old picture of the footings for the west side of our house. Like the shadow in the bottom left. Jersey by Tim's side. I'll get updated ones this weekend.

Our First Wall

Here we are this morning standing in front of our first wall. Unfortunately it is not a wall to the house (it just holds back a slope from the future driveway), but nonetheless, it is our first wall!

The Kids

It was nice to come home to our kids after two long but incredibly fun weekends at weddings. Check out our picture site for pictures from the weddings. Let me know if you need the password to the site.

Happy 3rd Birthday Jersey

Thursday, September 4th is Jersey's 3rd birthday but we had to celebrate a little early.

Happy 3rd Anniversary!

Tim and I celebrated our 3rd anniversary today! Our Africa trip is our present to each other so we just took it easy and went to a nice dinner. The third year gift is suppose to be leather so I thought it was so fitting that our itinerary came in a leather binder. Here is a picture we took before dinner with the leather binder. Can't believe it has already been three years!

Grading is Done

August is the New March

Happy Birthday Evan! He turns 2 today! Kyle Daniel Sosnowski was born at 9:35 am on August 17th.
He weighted in at 8 lbs 3 ozs. He has blue eyes and blonde hair.
Everyone is happy and healthy!

Tim and I went up to celebrate my brother's 30th birthday.
Nick and Kyle now share the same birthday!

Taking Shape

The lot is starting to take shape. Upper right will be the garage, with kid/guest rooms above. Upper middle will be the bonus room with the main living spaces (family room, kitchen, master, etc) above. Upper left will be the backyard. Closest area (where the guy is givingus a butt shot) will be the driveway going back to the garages. The guy just above him with the safari hat is slightly right of where the front door will be.

Pictures Again!

Back by popular demand... pictures of the dirt!

Here are two pictures of the key of our first wall. Don't get too excited... it is not a wall to the house. It is just a retaining wall for the driveway.
Here is a picture of one of our pads. This one is the future home of our garage.

This picture is just to the left of the previous one. The tractor is sitting where we hope to one day have a vanishing edge pool. Just inside of the tractor is the future home of our bonus room. The area closest will be the driveway/portico.

Jersey Better

Jersey is doing much better. Eating, playing, eating, sleeping and eating.

House update: Still moving dirt. Found more rocks.

Ersey Yick

Sorry for not updating the site in a while. At first my excuse was that the pictures all look the same and then... as Evan says, "Ersey Yick!" We have the sad news that Jersey is sick once again. Tim and I had noticed a few changes in her behavior but didn't think much of it until she suddenly stopped eating last Thursday.

We took her to the vet Friday where she spent the day providing them with blood, urine, poop, her front right paw (okay not that far but I am pretty sure she felt like a pin cushion) for tests but all came back normal. They sent us home with some special appetite enticing food (which didn't work) and some antibiotics (which meant my days of shoving pills down her throat have returned). I can't say that I have missed those days. I have taken up a new hobby of a cooking chicken and rice cuisine for my four-legged daughter. Whatever it takes to get her to eat!

After a few more days of her refusing to even look at her food or treats (and of me being a nervous wreck) we decided we needed to take her back to her friends at the specialty vet for an ultrasound on Monday. It's kinda sad when all the staff members come out from the back when they heard Jersey was back and they could all retell her whole story. I felt a little bit like the mom of a celebrity yet I am not sure I should be proud of this. Anyways, I mainly wanted to be assured that she wasn't suffering from liver disease or pancreatitis again. She isn't!

The ultrasound did show some inflammation of the stomach and small intestine but the inflammation was too high (I am guessing in her ribs) to determine why. To get a more detailed view, they needed to go in through a scope. Yep, that meant that she needed to be sedated and spend the night there. As you can imagine, I wasn't holding up too well but (thank you Leah) I cried it out and made it through the night. She did too. Fortunately the scope didn't find any obstructions but they also didn't find any reasons for the inflammation either.

While they were in her stomach and small intestine they took a few biopsies and sent them off to the lab in Colorado. Now we wait. You all should know me and the thought of waiting... we don't get along very well. We should hear on Friday or Monday if any of the tests come back with signs of: a bacterial infection (which is what I think we hope for since most or all are treatable with antibiotics), an autoimmune issue (pretty sure we don't want that), an allergy (I can likely live with that one), or cancer (we obviously don't want this and they really don't think that will be the case but they need to rule it out).

So, what we hope for is she miraculously gets better before we get the results and then they call and say everything came back normal. OR that she has some easily treatable infection and should be fine shortly after getting the appropriate antibiotics. Keep your fingers crossed.

For now, she is doing okay. I don't think she is getting worse and I don't think she is better. She still shows no interest in food or treats but she is excitable when she sees Tim or I or the ball. And she is shaved up both sides of her belly again. We call it her summer cut.

Wow! That was a novel. But I figured it was easier to share this way than retell the story many times. I appreciate all of you who have provided me with the support I have needed through this and I am sorry to those of you who are finding out on this website instead of from a phone call from me.

So on to the news that Tim wants to share... we got past all the rocks on the lot, imported a ton of dirt, and seem to be close to submitting the plans for the construction permit. We also start the fence next week. Lots going on and I will hopefully have some good pictures soon.

Now go rest your eyes...

Snap, Crackle, Pop

That used to be our nickname for Jersey since her joints crack often, but it now has a new meaning.

The rocks on our lot are blue granite, one of the hardest rocks. To get through it, they drill these holes and fill them with chemicals. When the chemicals get hot, they expand and crack the rock. (Thank goodness we live where we do... it gets HOT!) We even heard the popping of the rock. So crazy!

Rocks, Rocks, and More Rocks

When the radius is longer than I am tall, can you still call it a rock? I guess they are more like mountains, made of blue granite.

The orange dots are where they plan to drill and fill with chemicals that (hopefully) split the rock up. Wish us luck!

Cassie's Bachelorette

Club Vex

South Lake Tahoe

Enjoying the 4th in Tahoe

Happy 4th of July!

Isn't my nephew so cute? And much more exciting than the pictures of dirt.

Lots of Action This Morning

So we had three tractors, two hauling trucks and quite a few people at the house today! That's what I like to see!

I wish you could have seen the look on Tim's face as the tractor tore out the trees this morning. He was like a kid in a candy shop.

Although it looks like this truck is dumping something it is not. It was having trouble getting around on the property so it had to lift up the back to relieve weight from the middle set of tires. In the back is the very LARGE tractor on top of a huge pile of asphalt. It was just about to start loading the asphalt into the truck to be recycled.

This might be the last day of demo pictures! Hopefully the next post will be of the grading. Hope everyone is having a great day!

BY THE WAY, DON'T FORGET...
NO MORE TALKING ON THE CELL PHONE IN THE CAR
UNLESS IT'S WITH BLUETOOTH OR SPEAKER.

Big Piles Ready to be Taken Away (Hopefully Tomorrow)

Just Concrete Piles

Here we go again... Demo Part II Day 1

Concrete breaks up fast with big machinery!

Grading Permit

We finally got our grading permit yesterday! Man, it seemed like it took forever to get it. Anyways, now that we have it our grading contractor can finish up the (concrete) demo and move on to the grading. I'm sure I'll have a progress picture tonight.

Big Cat

The concrete walls and foundation are soon to go!

Demo Day 11

Much cleaner now. All that is left are the cement walls.


Remember two weeks ago when it looked like this...

Demo Day 10

No more wood standing but what a mess!

Demo Day 7

Yes, I am in our bath tub. We used to shower in this tub daily. Now it is all that is left of the second story.

Actually the chimney is still standing as well.
Tim admiring the view from our future bedroom patio.

Demo Day 6

Where did the house go?

Demo Day 5

Down to framing. All roofing, drywall, etc has been removed.