I am back...and here is where I have been!

We have been extremely busy over the summer months...really since about late spring. We were getting ready to move, and in the process of packing up our home, I was pregnant and my husband was/is working a full time job while building our new home. I thought I would update on our progress with the house with lots of pictures and some information on it. The order of the pictures aren't necessarily in order, but they are in order from most recent to the earlier stages.

A few weekends ago, my husband had invited about 4-5 guys over to help him put up the trusses.  That was a big job and we are very thankful and grateful for their help!

This is the backside of the house, or the South facing side.  We are building a berm home, so three of the walls will be buried in 6 feet of dirt.

This is the front of the home, the South facing side, where the windows will be.  There will be 11 large windows in the front, and 9 sky light windows on the roof, 4 of them will be ones that open up.  We are planning on designing the home to have planters on the inside under the windows to grow fruits and vegetables.

Caleb has been up to "the new land," as the kids like to call it, with Terry pretty regularly.

Nathaniel likes to go up to help out, and he really enjoys spending time with his new friend who only lives a few houses away.

Here is Terry with one of the main helpers~ we appreciate all his help this summer with everything.  His whole family has been such a help with the work, feeding my husband and sometimes kids, and more!

This summer has brought many challenges and hurtles.  We had one of our walls fall down after it had been stacked up completely.  It wasn't secure yet with the bond, but with the high winds and rain we've had, it just knocked down.  Then, with this picture above, we actually had lightning hit our house.  We had a rod sticking out of the cement block, and the lightning had hit that, shot down through the blocks and bust out through the bottom.  Crazy!  Amazingly, my husband fixed both and you wouldn't even know the difference.  I guess we will have to put up lightning rods to protect our home from future strikes!

This is the latest picture of what the house looks like.  Right now we are working on the materials for the chimney, for the wood stove, and putting the sheeting on.  The next step after the sheeting will be putting in the sky lights, chimney, and then roofing the house!

S'mores! Always a great treat!

Time with Grandma is always fun!

The kids love going on three wheeler rides with Dad!

Stunning sunsets up there....BIG SKY COUNTRY!

This is a hail piece from one of the big storms we had up there! It was crazy!

So much rain this summer~ sure made things delayed a bit.

So, that is one of the big projects that we have been working on this summer, and we are still working on it.  We hope to have it closed up before snowfall, but we shall see.  We started working on the home, breaking ground, in May.  We have had a few set backs with the rain, mud, muck, road restrictions, wall collapse and more, but we are just going to keep moving forward.  In the end, we will have no mortgage, 20 acres, and eventually raise our own food!  It has been hard being away from my husband as he works full time and spends all the other time working on the house, but I know that the sacrifices we make now will be worth the end prize.  I do look forward to having a more simplistic life!