Building Our New Home - 1st Update

We've slowly but surely started construction on our new home. Brent and I always say, "Nothing is ever easy..." and that has proven true even in the beginning stages of building this home and preparing our new property.

Our lot before construction

I've tried to take as many pictures of each stage to document building our next home for the girls because they won't remember any of this. It has been an experience so far but I know for sure that it will all be worth it when we get to move in and enjoy what we painstakingly waited for.

Measuring out where the slab will sit on the property

They began digging out where the slab will be on the lot and bringing in load after load of dirt to create a level surface for the slab to be poured once the piers are in the ground. The girls, Gran and I have spent many mornings sitting outside under Gran and Grandaddy's trees watching the trucks bring dirt in next door.

Dirt work begins...

More dirt work...

This last week the forms for the slab started being placed, but they left a few holes open for the truck to get in to drill the holes for the piers to be installed. One of our setbacks so far was working with the engineer and our builder on a plan for the piers. Apparently, regular piers just won't do out here because of the soil type...of course they won't. So, we had to go back and have the engineer draw up plans for a slab with bell piers...I won't bore you with the details of what bell piers are and why we need them, but we do.

Forms for the slab in the ground...

Setback #2: BEES! Brent had a friend from work, Dave, out here Friday night helping him to start dozing out all of the trees and brush in the ditch at the road in front of our property. The ditch has to be cleared before the water company will come install a water meter...of course. Dave was going about his business dozing away when apparently he hit a rather large bee hive and was swarmed on the dozer. He jumped off and started running but bees can fly pretty fast and they chased him. His head was covered in bee stings and after that, Dave was about done dozing. Brent and I felt terrible. We checked on Dave through the weekend and you'll be happy to know that he isn't allergic so he took some Benadryl and had a good rest and ended up with about 8 stings on his head and neck.

So, after that, the dozer was stuck in the middle of a swarm of bees....hmmmm, how do we get the dozer out? Well, when you live in the country, you call a neighbor. We have some really great neighbors who bought Brent's grandmothers house which will be on the left side of our house. They are a few years younger than us and have an 8 month old daughter who I know the girls and Shelby will become best friends with over the years. Brent called up our really nice neighbor and said, "Is that dozer you have over there pretty bee-proof?" Wouldn't you know it, but our really nice neighbor came out right away on a Friday night to doze out the trees and brush around the dozer Dave had been using to try to get the bees to find a new place to live. He did a great job and we hoped they would be gone by the next day.

The ditch Dave was dozing at the time of attack...

The dozer stuck after the bee attack...

Well, even after all our nice neighbor did, those bees stuck around on one little piece of the hive that was left on the ground near the dozer Brent was using. Brent wasn't going near the thing until they were gone.

The remains of the hive and the bees crawling all over it...

So, Brent decided it was time to call in the professionals...who would you call in a time like this...well, The Bee Man, of course. Bees Be Gone came out right away on Saturday and took care of the rest of the hive for us. There were still some remaining bees flying around the dozer so Brent gave it until today, Father's Day, to see how things had settled down over there.

The Bee Man

Brent went to assess the situation and came back saying that there were still bees buzzing around over there but he wanted to try to move the dozer away from the area and work on the other side of the ditch. So, we fashioned a make-shift bee suit for him. :) Complete with a laundry bag over his head and tucked into his shirt. Mind you, it's like 106 degrees outside right now and he's in two layers of shirts, long-sleeves, jeans, boots, a hat and the laundry bag....HOT!

My amazing hubby...Happy Father's Day honey, we love you :)

Aunt Elizabeth, Uncle Adam and I drove Brent over to the dozer and watched from afar as he cautiously jumped into the dozer and moved it to a safer location.

After all of this, the rest of the day was pretty relaxing. We had a great lunch made by Gran and enjoyed Brent's fav, Red Velvet Cake, to celebrate his birthday. After the girls went to bed, I went next door with Brent to watch him get back to work dozing away.

Brent dozing a huge tree out of the ditch...

Hopefully, Brent can get the rest of the ditch cleared without any snags and we can get our water meter installed and maybe, just maybe, the piers will start going in this next week. Fingers crossed!