Onward and Upward.

I guess it was mostly Upward.  I am so thankful for great neighbors, family, friends and Home Teachers!  HUGE thanks to Richard for working so tirelessly on our project.  We know you're busy and we really do appreciate your time. After we had sheeted what we could it was time to lift the trusses up on top.  This happened quite late at night so I apologize for the poor quality of the pictures.  Once again...a BIG Thank you to Shane.  He brought his tractor and helped us out of the goodness of his heart.  What a great home teacher!

The floor joists arrive!  They were unloaded in the middle of the driveway and it was a few days before we were ready to put them up.

This is how we did it...I told you it was late at night when we did this.

We used the tractor to lift all the double thick joists.  There were 3 or 4.  Then the next day we lifted all the single thick joists up 1 by 1.  That was a big job.  I don't know why I didn't take any pictures of that. I guess I was helping to make sure no one got hurt that I didn't think about it.

Here the Sheeting is arriving.  Those are the roof trusses to the right of the lift.  They'll come soon - after the second floor walls go up.

The view from below.

The view from above.

It's getting dark and Steve's still working.  It took him hours to screw it all down.  He was up there til 2:30 in the morning.

Love you Honey!

The Addition....finally!

Here is a look at what our crazy yard looks like most of the time. It seems like I just get one mess cleaned up and then we make a new one.  

We are starting to build the walls of the garage.  Too bad we had such a windy day.  Surprisingly, it went up quite quickly. The back wall first.

Then the side.

Micah was such a great little helper.  He helped pound in the nails after they were air nailed in.  Sometimes they just don't get in all the way.  Thanks buddy!

All the kids decided to get in on the action and create little projects.

I love Maren's flower... what a girl!

I think Evy was trying to make a chair?

And the front and little side go up!  Thanks for all the friends and Family who came to help lift this last wall - it was HEAVY and awkward!

Next come the floor joists - and if you're wondering how we got them up there - it was difficult.

Better with Video

I finally figured out how to get the video working, so here is a good sample of the crazy machines we've had going around here.  Enjoy, and you may want to make sure your sound isn't up too loud!  haha!

Digging the foundation:

Backfilling after the foundations were poured(sorry about the sideways camera):

Looks like that's all the video I can post for now.  I'll post a few more as we go along.  Once the front entrance was up, we moved on to framing the garage.  Stay tuned for that.