Helicopters and Driveways . . .

Hopefully we have seen the last of concrete trucks and helicopters at our house!

So much for a quiet life in the country . . .

It's a long story, but you can see in the pics below that we had a very interesting morning!

Late July Update

Backyard - the grass is growing . . .

Patio is finished . . .

Exterior Doors are painted . . .

Driveway concrete's almost complete!

Exterior doors are painted and both AC units are in!

Patio finished . . .

The new umbrella is solar - there's a small solar panel in the top that charges batteries during the day. Then at night we have 8-12 hours of LED lighting under our umbrella!

Thank You!

Within an hour of the sod being installed we had huge thunderstorms roll in!

Green at Last!

10,000 sf of sod was installed today! Thanks Eastgate Sod!

For the first time in TWO YEARS we're wishing for lots and lots of RAIN!!

We are back online now! We had our phone line trenched last week (finally) and our interior phone and DSL connections made today. After 10 days without Internet service, I feel like I am back in the land of the living. Below are a few photos of the kitchen and dining rooms. I'll get more photos uploaded as we get the rooms finished. We still need to finish up some painting of the doors and other trim work.

Today, Kenny and his dad finished putting in one of the air conditioning condensers. The kids now have AC upstairs, although it hasn't really been that bad. We've been living here for 10 days in 80 and 90-degree weather and been fine. The orientation and passive cooling/ventilation techniques are working very well. It's a little uncomfortable in the middle of the day, but we can turn on fans to make it comfortable. I didn't have AC growing up in NY, and actually, it's been better here than in the houses I grew up in. Today right at the hottest part of the day we fired up the condenser and it quickly brought the temperature upstairs from 84 to 80. Consequently, the downstairs temp went down to 80 as well. It's almost 10:00 pm now and the AC is off and the windows are open. By morning it gets down to about 70 and we start all over. Today, Kenny's uncle Joe also finished up our phone and Internet (we haven't tested them all yet Uncle Joe, but the one in the office for the fax doesn't work, so we moved the fax machine into the Toy room for now). Other than that, all is working fine. We also had Direct TV put in on Friday.

I won't bore my readers with all of the details and crazy things that have happened over the past 10 days, but hopefully we can finish up some final items and start to take it easy. We have to have sod installed within the next week or so for our final Certificate of Occupancy. We also need to have the driveway finished. Other than that, we're working on the patio and some last minute items before the Dalton Family Reunion which we will host here in August. Enjoy the pics and check back often - I'll try to keep updating the photos daily!