Dean's favorite time of the day - the sun just hitting the canyon walls. If you look carefully, you can see Mt Bachelor on the far left of the frame. In the center is South Sister, Middle and North are to her right, Broken Top to her left. 
It will be a beautiful day in the neighborhood
I'm getting ready for our "famous" New Years Eve party - Kansas style - those of you at FUMC know what that means! We'll be thinking of you.
Then - - - the snow melted and, guess what! All the water ran down the driveway..... What a mess we had!!!!
and the rain and snow melt came through the roof which doesn't yet have shingles.............. I counted 12 different containers collecting drips, spaced throughout the house. We either shop-vac'd the water, or caught it in containers, or swept it out the door. That shop vac holds a lot of water and it didn't take long to fill it - and empty it - and fill it - and empty it..... This happens to be the bedroom/master bath area. On the right, you'll notice the ductwork -- the furnace was being installed.
This is Dean up on the roof during the rain and wind - notice the bright yellow rainsuit jacket - installing tarps to keep out some of the water. By the time he was finished, the roof was covered in black and blue tarps. Very attractive! The white you see below the wood panels of the house is the foundation - go back a few posts for more info. The dark grey is where we had sealed some of the Styrofoam.
Back to the inside work - too wet outside - well, inside, too, as a matter of fact! We put in the stone surround in back of where the woodstove was to be installed. I laid out the stones by size and handed them to Dean as he needed them. See the yellow bucket to the left - yup - it's catching water..........
Guess what??????? The shingles are being installed!!!!!!! Yeaa
Shingles to the left - blue tarp being removed.
We're really moving along now. The deck is being installed. Notice the triangle shape on the left? We sent a template of the window showing inside and outside - and they sent totally the wrong window. We reordered, and they sent it wrong again! Backwards - the drain holes on the wrong side. So, we said, whatever - we're not sending it back again!
The deck from the master bedroom doorway...
The house is all wrapped up (too late for Christmas...) and Dean is painting trim so the guys can put on the gutters. This photo is way out of order - I could move it, but, oh well...... 
So, guess what this is? Our HOT tub!
Lucky for us, the crew that did our deck, siding, and gutters was here and helped carry it around the house.....
and..........
ever so carefully.....
hoist it up onto the deck
over Mr Lennox cardboard so as not to harm the new deck........or the new hot tub!
into place.........
ahhhhhhh - success! Now, if we only had electricity and water to fill it! This lovely day was February 7th - at 4pm
Stay tuned for further updates
Well, this is what we woke up to on December 1st. Remember, this was 2005 - we have barely had ANY snow since then, of course........ The first few days, it was really pretty.
One of our little friends is standing in the driveway - a little hard to see. We shoveled the whole driveway - 3 times, I think - with the help of neighbors, Bill and Joyce. We would shovel out theirs, then do ours, then down the street and do some other neighbors. It wasn't cold - during the day when the sun was warming us.
So, you can see that on the 15th, some of the snow was melting in the sun and things are looking pretty nice.
Then, on the 19th, it did it again!!!
This is our poor "home" - this is the end of the tent trailer that we slept in - the heat from our bodies momentarily melted the snow/ice, then froze again - well, that's my story anyway - but we had icicles hanging from all the corners of the trailer off the canvas. It is really amazing that we did so well in there. You could see in previous photos that we placed straw bales around the "foundation" (ha!) of the trailer to try to hold some of the heat in underneath so the water lines wouldn't freeze. We also had a small heater under there for the cold nights - they all were, though! It didn't always work, but none of the water lines burst. We had to wait for it to warm up some days and there was often an icicle hanging from the faucet.
Well, all this talk of cold is depressing me, so I think I will go down and make a cup of tea. Saga to be continued................
This is how it looked from below - to the west. You can see the beam sticking out in the highest part above the 2 windows.
The roof panels are being assembled in the garage-to-be. From left to right is Bill, Dean, contractor Ray-Ray and Jim. They are putting 3 panels together - 2 x 6's between and headers and footers. All blue glued and blue screwed together.
Then the put-together panels are "flown" to a pile, waiting for all to be completed.
Then, each completed panel group is "flown" to it's place as the roof. Here, Dean is "guiding"
And this is the first wall
When we came to the big tall wall, it was time to call a contractor for some help. Good thing we did, huh?
Beginning to actually look something like a house, isn't it?
Now it is November 8th - that's 2005 - and it is turning a bit nippy. A warming fire is nice in the morning
This is where Abby was laying in the frost. She is enjoying the cold weather a lot more than we are, I think.......... 
The shiny stuff you see in the photo below is ICE!!! We had to chip it away to walk in the house.
This will be it for today's post - more tomorrow, Gordy! And, you should be able to comment now - I hope. Let us know if you can't, OK?
We spent a weekend doing some clearing on the property - this is the pile that the fire department came and mulched.
Janet and I spent a few nights under the stars - Dean greeted us with a fresh cup of coffee.
There is the tent trailer in the background - Home Sweet Home!
Contractors laid out the ICF's - Integrated Concrete Forms
Then, Dean and Jim built the "pony walls" for the "basement" and then put in the sub floor. If we had known how deep it was going to be, we would have put in a REAL basement.........
But, the next day.................... Breakfast in the future great room
