Are you feeling lucky punk?

Have I done that title before?  Not sure but I think I *might* have.  I apologize if I did....

Anywho, I am thinking that Thursday is our day, our LUCKY day!  Ryan and I  stopped out for our nightly check of the footers.....

Really I have actually been out to the property for all of this, I am just always behind the camera ;)

After stopping this is what we found....

The west wall footers were dry!!  Yiiipppeeeee, I think after a sunny and almost 80 degree day tomorrow we should be able to call for our SECOND footer inspection.  I think this week is OUR week!

Whew, it's hot in here....

I don't know if I have officially put this out there on the blog (however I am sure my FB followers figured it out) but we did NOT pass our footer inspection.  Of course it decided to monsoon the week they dug our footers....I mean it IS spring and that IS our luck!  The building inspector needs to be able to walk in the footers before he will approve.  Soooooo Ryan and I (and all of our awesome family and friends) have spent morning, noon and night digging trenches, burying crocks and checking sump pumps!!  As a matter of fact we burnt up the sump pump that our plumbing dude, aka Jarod, had purchased for our basement when we got to that point (it is also possible that Ryan cut the cord on said pump with a chainsaw, but you ain't heard that from me cuz I ain't one to gossip).  We then had to hit up Jarod for pump numero dos on Sunday morning.  We are now in business!  We have 2 pumps pumping, two crocks, and lots of sunshine and no rain in the forecast.  So pllleeaasseee keep those fingers crossed that we can pass that inspection and get our footers poured.

Onto the barn.  We have been kicking butt on the barn :-)  As a matter of fact this was actually the first WARM weekend that we've had since we started.  And whew, it was a good thing we got the windows put in cuz it got a little stuffy in the barn and we needed to open them.....

Yeah, yeah you guys that heard that joke all weekend, I apologize that you had to endure it again!  Thennnn after all the hard work was done, we decided it was time for a few brewskis because most of us were kidless......

Now when you are friends with our crew you always have to be on your toes.  Annnndddd when you are in here and you hear a truck fire up you butter hope for the best......

It is awfully hard to crawl outta there when you can't get the door open.  Ahhhhh with friends like us, who need enemies???

All of a sudden things come together.

It really is amazing how, after waiting forever, things get going and I can hardly keep up with all that is going on!  Here are some action photos of the work we did on the barn this weekend.....

Here is the first truss being set.  For the record, holding the rope was my job for the first part of the morning!  Wow it was a lot of pressure.  They were all, keep it level, don't knock any more of the trusses over and hey don't knock any of the guys off the roof ;)  As I said NO PRESSURE!!

They finished all of the trusses by lunch time.  As I said, the Amish ain't got nothing on these guys!

Then they began sheeting the roof!!  I really don't know how they walk around up there like NBD...

BJ and I cheered them on from the sidelines cuz my A double S was NOT getting up on the roof!!

We even had a little birthday cake for Shawna and the twins.  Obviously this was the after shot!

On Sunday Ryan was way up there and hollered hey babe climb on up here and help me.  I looked all around to see if there was some other chick he was referring to as babe.  Nope....it was me.  Wasn't my favorite job but I did as I was told and I held on for dear life.  We did two more sections then Kenny showed up and saved the day.....he took my place WAY UP THERE.

Here is the finished product ready to be roofed!  Lookin' good.....

Then in the midst of all of the festivities on Saturday they came and put the forms in for the footers.  Now we are just waiting for the building inspector to come out and approve so they can actually pour the footers.  *Hopefully* he shows up out there ASAP today!  Fingers crossed......

The day we finally broke ground!!

After 4 long years of this process we finally broke ground and started to dig the basement.  Annndddd in my usual nerd-like fashion, I shot some video of it!  Last Saturday, April 12th, 2013 we OFFICIALLY BROKE GROUND!!  So here ya go......it is pretty dramatic basic!

It is also quite possible I was behind the camera shedding a tear or TWELVE :-)

This is how country people roll!

You can say and think what you want about country folk.  However one thing you can never say is that we're lazy!!

As you blog regulars know (and of course, those of you that were there) we started the barn this weekend!!  And wow I still cannot believe how much those boys got done in just 2 short days.

Here is the before picture after they leveled out the ground:

Theennnnn after 2 days (I would say a total of 10 hours) and plenty of Busch Light this is what we ended up with after our first big weekend of work!!

It really is crazy how much they got done.  Not to mention we worked through snow, rain, sleet and wind (oh and a robbery in town).  Nobody ever gave up and kept on truckin'.

Look they even started doing some interior decorating!!

Then on Monday the sun decided to come out which is pretty much as predictable as Michigan weather gets!  So here is the after from the driveway......

I will have a much more detailed posts with lots of good pictures but didn't have much time now.......

Barn building necessities....

Apparently I am about as predictable as the day is long!  Most of you were right on with your answers. Soooo without further ado, here are some of the things to help build a barn......

Obviously we need some lumber and some trusses......

We also need lots of water and caffeine to keep everybody energized....

Mmmmmm and 5+ pounds of sloppy joes to keep everybody full....

Annnnndddddd finally, some celebratory beers when the work is done for the day!!!

Oh and this mother effer if I can find it before tomorrow.....NOT looking good!!

Have you seen me????

Help...my new pink square is missing and I need that biatch to build our barn!!!!

Ode to Mother Nature.

Roses are red


Violets are blue


If this rain doesn't stop


I will find you!!!!!!



NO REALLY.......

The neighbors are gonna talk!

We've owned our property for the last 3 years.  We closed on it in April 2010 and then we just waited.  We waited for our damn house to sell, we waited for a year to save enough for a down payment (since I didn't want to sell a kid or a kidney for that matter) but the time has come!!
I am sure all the people in the 'hood have been wondering if we were ever going to do anything out there other than run a redneck campground.***  Well guess what showed up yesterday??


Yep that is the first load of lumber for the pole barn!!!  Wooohhooooo!  We are actually making some progress here.

Then these showed up.

Is it really sad that I was so excited I was walking around saying "awwwww our new barn door" and "awwwww our new barn windows" oh and "awwwww our new barn door knob"??  Yeah I am lame!!  (for the record I would have taken a picture of the door knob but it is mother effing gold and I am still trying to figure out a way to weasel an exchange for a silver one without Ryan knowing!)

Back to my point!  The trusses were delivered to the property today as well as a load of millings for the driveway.  I am sure people have driven by and sighed a big sigh of relief that we are going to actually build SOMETHING....and in just under 3 years time ;)

So, this weekend starts the barn raising!  So be forewarned I will be wielding a hammer (yikes!).  Oh and maybe we'll dig the basement and maybe we won't!  Mother nature has not been helpful this week.......




***Small disclaimer:  I am sure there will be more camper action this year than last year ;)

Bathroom stuff....

As was obvious by my  hint, we had the vanities and vanity tops delivered for our master bath.  I found a place in Kentucky that had matching 24 inch and 36 inch vanities (obviously we have two different sizes in our master bath and MORE OBVIOUSLY the bigger one is mine).  I was totally fine with finding 2 different style vanities as long as they were both black.  Wellllll that whole idea just freaked Ryan out so I was on a mission to find matching black vanities that didn't look like your standard bathroom vanities.  Fast forward to Signature Hardware.  They are in Kentucky and offered free shipping and there was not tax either.  As if that wasn't good enough to sell me, I found black vanities that had real marble tops and under mount sinks!! Most importantly?  They were REALLY reasonably priced!  So I sucked it up and ordered them.  After all we have SO MUCH ROOM to store stuff.  I hope my in-laws don't strangle me because we are slowly starting to take over their garage.  

They finally showed up last week right around 6:00....an hour after the latest possible delivery time....in a 53 footer.  I thought that it was a bit of overkill but hey it was free delivery.  They loaded the boxes right from the semi into the back of Ryan's pick up and we hauled it over to my in-laws.

I was able to sneak one (albeit crappy) picture.  Ryan is not amused by my need for pictures for my blog so he told me to make it snappy.  Here is the 36 inch top.....my vanity top!!

Everything was packaged so perfectly that we didn't dare take anything out of the boxes so I didn't get any pictures of the vanities.  Sooooo here is a link to the picture of the 36 inch base (in case you really care).  Just imagine it with that glorious marble above ;)   What can I say I am happy that I found these!

Here's a little hint....

Remember this master bath that I loved????

This has something to do with my delivery today.......

Oh the little things!

Well, I think we have actually paid for all of our permits!  Whew that is a relief....a pricey BIG relief.  The final permit we had to submit moolah for was our electrical permit.  Obviously we don't even have a hole dug so WHY do we need to get it now, you ask?  Well we have to get our temporary power set up so we can, oh I don't know, build a damn house in this lifetime!!!!  All those people that will be out there working need someplace to plug their equipment into annnndddddd I don't think the neighbors will appreciate me running extension cords from their houses out to our property for the next 9 months!!

Ryan had to put together the blah, blah, blah, meter box, GFI thingy, ground fault wire, 200 amp something-or-other.  Anywho, he had to put that thing together per DTE's specifications, attach it to the pole and THEN the electrical inspector would come out to inspect it (thus the reason for the electrical permit already).  So he got it all together, attached it to the pole and the inspector came out Saturday night to inspect.  Annnnddddd drumroll please.......

Here is our first green approval sticker.  Yeah I know totally cheesy, huh?  Ryan asked me if I felt the need to frame it.  Bwhwhahhahahaa whatevs!  I think he was just as excited as I was.  Let me tell you guys.  When you have been waiting 4 years for this to happen the little things really mean alot.  Each of these little things we tick off our list just mean that we are that much closer.

Guess what we are going to order on Wednesday???  The pole barn kit!!!  Yiiiipppeeeeeee somebody better go find where we packed the karaoke machine so it can be introduced to its new home!  Soooooo that being said.......all you fockers better be ready cuz we are going to start that baby NEXT WEEKEND!!  We are taking the kids to Kalahari this weekend for one last hurrah before all the work begins.

Rumor also has it that the frost laws *might* be coming off this Friday.  If that is the case, hopefully we will be digging a hole early next week.  Seriously, could somebody pinch me?  I think this thing is really gonna happen......