We're Rocked by the Sheets!

Just take a gander at our new sheetrocked home! Woohoo! Up above is me, so excited to be standing in my kitchen's entry way. Pretty soon there'll be a party in that kitchen and you'll all be invited!
Down below is our new dining room and our new living room, I have to keep repeating that it's all new to encourage myself to keep chugging along, that there is a good reward at the end of this race. I've had a few down days out building, just really wanting to be laying on the couch (never swinging another hammer again) in the new home, staring at my beautiful new walls. But God, I just love that phrase, He keeps strengthening me every day, renewing me to keep trudging through, building patience all along the way. Isn't that life? Because the truth is, and He keeps reminding me, unless the Lord builds the house (life, marriage, family), it's laborers labor in vain.
Here's my man, taking a peek at our new view out these big new living room windows...
Deep thoughts with Will Irwin, and they're deep, I'll tell ya...

Spiderwoman to the rescue

Krystal stepped into the great unknown to boldly go where she had never gone before, the trusses. I couldn't be more proud of her. She put "L" brackets on every interior wall from above.

She is not too fond of heights, but she was willing to overcome her fear. She sang worship songs to keep her mind on things above and not "things below" (namely the floor-eight feet below).

She is Spiderwoman, Wonderwoman and Superwife all rolled into one! I am so proud of her. :)

Thanks for the Help Boys

Ryan Rhoden and Dave Mahoney came from Medford to help with the house. We accomplished a great deal of work. We were able to do lap siding on our house in the morning and set almost all the trusses on Jorge's house in the afternoon...apparently Ryan carried some one by fours...he is great little helper!

Time

Doesn't it seem like someone should put up another post on this Blog? I hate lazy people.

Rookie of the Week!!!

John Sheyer (the next great white Duke player who won't be any good in the NBA) has quickly become my favorite player (I suppose the just won't let Grant Hill come back-something about him being almost forty or something). He just won rookie of the ACC for the week (14.5 points a game).

It is almost March, flowers will be budding and I will be wearing Duke apparell every day until Duke loses in the NCAA tournament. I am sure I will receive a great many comments on how "that won't be long this year!" But I stand by my (I never attended Duke, but I saw them on TV) team...in the end 64 teams will be sent home crying...And MY team will probably one of the first teams out.

Color takes hold

We have four houses painted!!! Granted it is only one coat, there are six more to paint and the rain doesn't seem to be letting up! But we are moving forward!!

Stopping to honor Him...

What? A scripture writing day on the barren 2 x 4 studs, followed by a sweet time of prayer over our home, our family and our ministry that will be done there in just a short time (still shooting for March 15th but realistically more like the end of March)
Where and When? at the almost-done Irwin house on Sunday, February 11th at 4-5pm
Why? We wanted God's word to be covering us there inside and out of those walls so that we know we are surrounded by His truth. "Thy word I have set before me so that I may not sin against You."
Who? just a few of our fellow believers and some scriptures written for those who couldn't attend. Attendees: Jon Amy and Jonah (in the oven cooking) Knudson, Kia Ella and Olivia Gregory, Scott Jill and Noah Evans, The Chappell Clan: Chuck, Gloria, Levi, Beth and Tyler and Daniel Schultz
How? with some big fat sharpie markers, some bibles, much prayer and a lot of love and fun
We are SO grateful for such special friendships!

A few shades of blue and eight miles of forest

...A moment of silence for our fallen commrads...Duke lost last night to the great evil...North Carolina (I hate that baby-blue)

Dodgeball to the face

Run like a wild BANCHEE screaming your head off while throwing a ball at some unsuspecting kid. What a great way to spend a period. Last Friday we took the afternoon to set down our books pick up cylindrical objects and have a wondeful time. (RIGHT-David Morrow lays out an unsuspecting John Zech. LEFT-Ty Wheeler gives me the "what for" after taking me down a few notches)

We had a great time and were refreshed to start a new week.

New Shots...

See our little humble abode off in the left hand corner of the picture, this is the end of our new little cul-de-sac. Woohoo!
Here's a shot from the roof of house #8, looking at houses #9 and #10. The one on the left is house #9 and UCC's construction class is building that one all the way up to the roof. The one on the right is the last house we have to build (externally anyway)!!!!! Yeah, that's right! Can you believe it? We can't either!

We also found out some REALLY good news this last weekend for those of you we haven't bragged about it yet to, we are having our sheetrock hanging-job subcontracted out now!! That takes like months off of our job. And that makes our March 15th deadline date a lot more realistic. I figure I can totally make it 1.5 more months. I am nearing the feeling of a burned-out construction man and I'm SO ready to become feminine and clean and to make the inside of my home beautiful. So, just pray that all works out a little quicker and smoother now that we know we have that sheetrock job off of our backs.




This is the roof job for house #8 which is now all up and they are almost done with sheeting it--putting the sheets of wood down on the trusses to make a roof (for those of you like me that are not so big on construction terminology).

Unexpected surprise

I know the title is a little redundant...aren't all suprises "unexpected" but I believe titles with two words are far more gripping to the soul. At approximately 8:16 snow began to fall. With the ground frozen from a few days of freezing weather, the snow found a happy home. I had heard a possible dusting was on the way, but was shocked to see two to three inches by 10:15. School was closed by eleven and I was off to build my new best friend "Absalom" (seen here with his buck teeth). He only survived approximately 45 minutes...but he lived life to the fullest.

SNOW DAY!

Let it snow!!!! In the midst of a long stretch without a day off, God blessed Krystal and I with two days off due to the beautiful white stuff. We decided to spend the day resting, shopping and having lunch with Paul and Jan. We feel refreshed and ready to return to the regular run of the mill.

Visitors from another land...

I had a couple of visitors from afar come to visit me in the Burg over Christmas Break and I just wanted to show off their shining faces. We all went for a house visit of course!

Krista Brazeal and her cousin Kaley and I in the new front door... Us in one of the extra bedrooms...
Michelle Williams and I in our hallway...
Some foreign aliens stopped the new front yard too, Will told me they were deer tracks, hmm...

sliding doors

Slowly but surely we are moving closer to our destination of a new home. Over the weekend we had our sliding glass door installed. In honor of this event we thought it would be fun to list a few of our future interactions with our sliding glass door.

1. Our children, Mildred and Edgar, will leave finger prints all over the glass frustrating their mom.

2. Will will leave kissing prints on the glass for his wife (she won't be frustrated at him).

3. Edgar will try to walk through the glass because he isn't aware that it is closed (Krystal just cleaned it).

4. We will watch the sunrise together over the Umpqua Valley.

5. We will enjoy life together

Just a little view of our future with our sliding glass door.