73 yards of concrete and it is just the beginning!?

April 29^th

The Footings were poured yesterday!! I have some before and after concrete pictures below.

The first three are of the corner of the garage where the utilities come into the house. The large pipe is the for the electricity and the two smaller are for the water and phone lines. 

The pictures below are of the stair area between the garage and the front entry. Tom said they use 7-8 yards of concrete in this area alone. 

The next two shots are of the kitchen and dining room. the two black pipes are the drains for the sink and dishwasher in the kitchen island.

This is the opposite view from the pictures above. 

 This is the garage. Most of the rocks and soil in the foreground will be used to backfill the garage area.

This is the living room. You can see the area for the fireplace on the right.

The picture below is of the front porch. The front door will be on the left side of the porch as you walk up to the house. you would be walking from right to left in the picture to enter the house.

 The picture below is the pile of Decomposed Granite that Tom and Lee will use to fill in the void between the concrete footings.

Tom our foundation contractor was telling me today that as the inspector was walking around looking at the re-bar and the forms he and Tom were talking about the project and the inspector was commenting on how nice the area was and at that moment a family of three deer walked through the lot. As Tom put it “Paul (our inspector) was in the middle of saying how nice this area is and it was like 'Que the deer!' and they walked through! Paul got so excited and couldn't stop talking about it.” The inspector signed off on all the work that had been done and Tom poured concrete footings three days later (yesterday). If all goes quickly (unlikely) the remaining work (filling the interior areas with sand) to prepare for the slab and garage will be done by Friday. If not it will be early next week and then we can call for the last foundation inspection before the rest of the concrete is poured. So we may have a finished foundation by the weekend of the 10^th! Crazy! :)

My pinky is doing very well. I can type and do most everything with it. If I tap the end of it there some slight pain but it seems to be diminishing.

Last week was very eventful and involved another trip to the Urgent Care and a semi-emergency visit to the Dentist. The good part was that these two visits were not for the same family member (that is good news isn't it...).

Wednesday night at 3 am K got up to nurse E. As she took her first step she was unaware that her lower right leg was totally asleep and mostly limp. She took the step but her foot didn't lift off the ground and she caught her toes under her and then put all her weight on the backward facing foot. She didn't know what was happening until she was falling to the ground. She then knew instantly that something was really wrong. We waited until the kids got up at 7 and we all took her to the Urgent Care for x-rays. The PA on call didn't manipulate her foot or even look at the left foot to compare the swollen foot with the other. He told her she needed to compress it to keep the swelling down?! Needless to say, we are not impressed nor totally sure the diagnosis of a sprain is correct.

While she was waiting for the results I took C and the rest of the kids to the Dentist. One of C's teeth had a chunk missing. The missing piece was about 10% of the size of the tooth. The piece fell out a few days before but it had not been bothering her. So we decided to wait until her scheduled appointment for cavity work the following week. But two nights before K fell she was complaining that she could all of sudden feel the tooth when she brushed. We were both praying that she would not wake up in the middle of the night with searing nerve pain from an exposed nerve. K called the following morning to see if we could move up the cavity work appointment. They had a cancellation so we took it. It just happened to be the same morning that we needed to make the Urgent Care visit for K. The adventure continues! :)

L (K's stepmom who lives locally) met K at the Urgent Care after I dropped her off and gave her a ride to the dentist after her appoint was finished. She then came to the house to help the following morning. She prepped food, kept the kids entertained and made K breakfast. Thank you L! T (K's sister) has been here to help over night for four nights in the last week and has been a life (or should I say foot?) saver! If it hadn't been for these two women helping in such tangible ways, K would not be recovering so well!

So now that C's tooth is fixed and K's foot is starting to get better, we are waiting with eyes wide open for the next broken bone or stitches or who knows what to happen...

:)