Our dinner party

My mom, dad, and Jacquie pose for a picture in our living room at one of our first dinner parties at the new house. Chad and my dad were working hard on this Saturday so we decided to bring the dinner to them. We had a few beers and burned part of the giant brush pile down by the lake.

Girls Day

Jacquie & I took the girls to the Children's Museum. We all had a blast! The girls always enjoy painting their faces.


Ava had fun "playing" the guitar in the music video room. She's such a rock star!
Ellie is waiting for her prince while looking out at her kingdom.
Lydia is such a princess!
We were getting hungry, so we took a break at the McDonald's in the skyway. Then we went back to the museum for more fun. What a day!

Electrical & Framing inspection...

Lydia and Chad flip on the switch. We officially have real lights in the house! It's very cool.
Another picture of the panels...
If you look close, the right side of this box had THE sticker from the electrical inspector. This is a very important step in our quest for being finished by Thanksgiving. Yes, I said our goal is Thanksgiving.

Well the inspector came back out early Friday afternoon and was pleased with what he saw. He told us that everything looked great!! Next step FRAMING inspection. I have the city inspector coming out on Thursday.

This weekend Doug and I Got all the three-way switches working so now we can walk into the house at night and flip the lights on.

Now it's Saturday the 30th and the framing inspector was here and only found six things we need to fix. Chad said they are small fixes. He's hoping to have the inspector out to reinspect this coming week. Keep your fingers crossed! When this passes, we're on to siding and insulating.

Chad's car had some things he had to fix this week. We knew it needed work, but were waiting until the house was done. Well, the house is not done but the car was. He was in between the house and my parents garage where the car is taken apart all week. We are currently at the cabin relaxing on this glorious Labor Day Weekend. We'll take pictures and update this week. I'm back to work so the updates should be more frequent. Have a great weekend!

Electric Inspection Update

The inspector showed up Tuesday morning and started looking through the house and asking questions. We got dinged on a few things but we were able to fix those the same day. I'm going to try to get him back out on Friday.

A few things we got dinged on we should have known like the kitchen microwave needs its own circuit (even though we asked an electrician and he said it should be fine) and we overloaded a box or two. Other things we had to fix were:

Add a disconnect to the well power
Make sure where a wire enters a box that it's 1 1/4 inches away from the stud
Separate the dishwasher and garbage disposal so they are on two different circuits
and we had to move an outside receptacle off the kitchen circuit and put it on the outside circuit.

Electrical Update

Ends up that I didn't buy a big enough electrical panel in the beginning. As you can see we have three panels for this house. The one on the right is the 200 amp main panel then it's the off peak panel for the boiler for the in floor heat. The panel on the left is the 100 amp add-on one I had to buy when we ran out of spaces on the main.


Tomorrow (8/19/2008) we have our electrical inspection scheduled. After walking through the house everyday I am hoping that everything will go as planned and I will be able to call for a framing inspection.

Below is all the water lines for the house. This past weekend we got the well running, a pressure tank installed for the well and the hot water heater. We will be looking at water softeners in the next few days.

Bike Riding

Ava has finally started riding her little bike.  She loves wearing her helmet and needed to have a kitty tail on this particular day.  Ava needs to be closely supervised due to her tight corner taking and tipping over.  
Lydia has been riding her bike like a pro for years.  She likes riding around Grandma and Grandpa's circle drive next door and then flying down the hill back to our house.  She makes her mom very nervous.  

Pontoon Rides, Tubing, 4th of July and Weddings

This summer has been a flurry of activity in our family.  The new Marine park opened and is pretty close to our house.  We go their a lot.  The playground equipment is way cool and the beach is pretty nice.  I also was offered a job a week after school let out at a school in Forest Lake.  I'll be teaching 6th Grade at North Lakes Academy  in Forest Lake.  The school is building a new school in Wyoming so this year is going to be crazy.  I'll be at Faith Luthern for the year and in the new school next year.  I can't believe we're building a house and I'm starting a new job.  Driving 6 miles to work will be a definite plus!  We're planning on being in the house by Thanksgiving.  I'm hoping for Halloween.  

We took an evening pontoon cruise on Forest Lake and ate dinner.  This one is Ava and Aunty Bee snuggling during our three hour tour.
4th of July weeked, Chad took a break from the house and accompanied the family to the cabin for the weekend.  Ava is making her usual funny face while sitting with Grandma Reen on the pontoon.  It wound up being a great weekend and a well deserved break for all of us.  
Lydia and Chad went tubing together.  Lydia's courage is growing more and more each day.  By the end of the weekend, she was tubing by herself and swimming like a crazy lady.  We all decided to jump off the pontoon in the middle of the lake and cool off.  The girls are really comfortable with their life jackets and will swim anywear we let them.  
As usual, the fireworks were a pleanty in Cumberland over the 4th of July weekend.  The girls each got their own 3D fireworks sunglasses for viewing the shows in the evening.  Here they are sporting their matching 4th of July shirts, (thanks to grandma) and their glasses.  
Lydia and Ava had fun entertaining Grandma Hazel at our cousins wedding.  As usual, everyone had a blast!

Lydia B-Day, Girls Outing, and Handprints in Cement

Lydia had another birthday party with her friends this year at her Grandma Renee's house.  This is her opening her presents.
We took the girls to the Lindstrom park.  They were playing house on the playground equipment.
We poured the front porch cement and decided to get the girls handprints in there.  Here's Lydia and Chad getting full of cement.
Ava thought it was pretty cool to get into the cement after being told to stay away from it all day.  
Here are the two prints.  Mom found a nail and wrote their names and the date in underneath.  

Como Zoo and Osceola

Jacquie and I took the girls to the Como Zoo.  The girls had a blast looking at all the animals and having a picnic.  Afterwards we rode the Merry Go Round.  We didn't know what to expect, but the girls had a blast.  Ava did not want to get off at the end.  Next time!

Lydia and Ava are standing in front of a white goat. (in the background)
Another day outing lead us girls to Osceola.  We picniced in a park and then headed over to the waterfall.  This picture was taken before our long walk down the stairs.
Lydia and Ava standing in front of the waterfall.  They thought this was pretty cool and this year decided that they were old enough to go venture  closer.  We walked down and they went underneath and walked in the water.  It was really loud!