Steph's Reality Blend

My Mom and Dad came to visit us for 9 days and guess what happened? A lot. It's taken a while to get this post up because (1) see the next blog post, and (2) my computer and phone are not communicating well and uploading pictures to share. First things first! Since Mom and Dad arrived on a Saturday  afternoon, we visited the work site before supper (because  they were itching to see it in real life) but then we took Sunday  to rest (as Randy and I had decided to be intentional about  during this season of life; to work as needed for 6 days, but set  aside Sundays for resting). SO we had s'mores by the fire,  and Andrew was bringing lots of little apples from the tree to Oma.  On our first work day with Oma and Opa, my dad  and I took the "truck" (our poor minivan) to Menards and loaded  it with lumber for the next day's work. Here, Oma and Andrew  are taking a little ride down the "driveway" on an electr...

1st week of September After such speedy, impressive progress, the  last week and a half has slowed down quite  a bit, cutting one piece of tin at a time,  one inch at a time. Part of the tediousness was trying to match  up the existing holes in pieces of tin with the  wood of the pole barn, to reduce having to caulk holes. There are going to be a lot of caulked holes anyway.

This week, the pole barn underwent a transformation! First, we got a shipment of lumber from Menards.  (It was actually about the same price as it would  have been to drive 1/2 hour to borrow a truck,  pick up a trailer, drive to Baxter, load lumber ourselves,  drive back, unload lumber, return the trailer, return the truck,  and fill the truck with gas. A whole lot easier, too!!) Good thing we have helpers!  Randy and I built the first little  stud wall and installed it. We tried that method with a wall section for another  side of the building, but it was just too tight to  install as one big piece. We took it apart  and put studs in board-by-board. Again, the help was eager.  First "meal" (Andrew's belated-birthday-cake) on the concrete floor! At the end of the first stud-framing day! On Wednesday, the kids and I rode the Teamcycles  to town and ...