Basement Walls

Wednesday, June 24th - We have basement walls.

Splash!

We did swimming lessons this week!

This is the second year that we've chosen to do private lessons in Limon.

The instructor is awesome and the kids do well with the structure.

Well, one of the kids.

Gunner doesn't really care much for the big pool...but...today {the last day} he actually decided that he liked it and was smiling and having fun.  NO crying!!

So both kids made big strides over the week.

Here's a look at my Instagram pictures from the week.

What's it look like?

Here is the front elevation drawing of the house.

Justin and I are both very happy with how the exterior looks.

Truth:  We totally changed house plans at the beginning of this go-round.

We had very nice custom plans drawn, but by the time we cut out most of the exterior rock {due to budget}, I was no longer in love with how it looked.

So, custom plans round two and we love it!

The main thing we like about this design:

It looks like it belongs in the middle of the prairie on a ranch, not on a suburban 40 acre tract.

 

Last week we met with the builder and made exterior selections.

Below you'll see our selections for stucco color, shingles, front door and then one of those colors {or something like them} for the metal roof over the front porch.

Making the decision to redesign our house was a big decision, but a good decision.

We really liked our first set of plans, it was a beautiful house, but when we really stopped and considered our needs, taste and budget, it just didn't work.

Not only did we make some design changes {mostly exterior}, we also cut down on square footage a little to allow room in the budget to keep the interior finishes we were hoping for.

Our builders were awesome {and very patient} to work through the process with us.

Once we made the difficult decision to redesign the house, we were totally at peace, excited and so ready to get started on building our forever home!

Goldings Build

It's happening.

The Golding's are building.

When we moved into the Trailerhood, nearly five years ago, our plan was always to save money up and build a house. Our forever house, on the ranch.

In 2013, we put our plans out for bid.

They came back, and we determined that we needed to wait a little longer and save some more money.

I say that like it was an easy decision to make, or an easy fact to accept.

It wasn't, it was disappointing, but in the end we knew it was the right decision.

After more saving, planning and a lot of prayer, it is finally happening!

We broke ground on our forever home on June 8th.

For those of you that followed my folk's home building journey five years ago, the same builder out of Limon is building ours too.

Here's a timeline of the past two weeks:

Monday, June 8th - The first day of the project, dig day.

The kids certainly enjoyed all of the dirt!

Tuesday, June 9th - The second day of digging and the hole is done!  I LOVE this picture.

Here's a fun one of the kids playing in the dirt.

Monday, June 15th - And we have a road!  "Everything I love is at the end of an old dirt road.  I wouldn't give a nickle to have it paved in gold."

Thursday, June 18th - Concrete footers poured.

 

Monday, June 22nd - Forms ready for the big pour.

Tuesday, June 23rd - We passed four concrete trucks on our way to work this morning! {Let's ignore our filthy windshield!}

So I'll do my best to keep you all updated.

As you can tell, these guys work quickly!

#goldingsbuild

We really like this guy...

This guy, yeh, we think he's pretty awesome!

We had a fun day in the big city yesterday celebrating him.

Since it was Father's Day, we even let him chose where to eat!

{And it was Sunday, so Chik-Fil-A was closed...the kids didn't stand a chance!!}

Famous Dave's it was.

Yummy!

 {Do note, Gunner made a wardrobe change after lunch....BBQ is messy!!!}

Then it was onto La-Z-Boy to get this boss his Father's Day present.
A new recliner for the new house.  {New house, yes...that's a whole other series of blogs I need to get on!}
I of course, had a very stylish {and certainly not as comfortable chair} already picked out online, but, I mean, a man and his chair, you've gotta let him get what he wants, right.

I totally approve of his selection.
It was probably the sleekest, comfy recliner they had.

Then we went and saw Inside Out in 3D.
Super cute.
3D movies with kids is fun : )

And last stop of the day was of course...Dairy Queen!

Then we headed home and had cake with the Papas.
A great day celebrating great men!!

Summer So Far

Summer is off to a great start!

Here's a peek at what we've been up to the last month or so.

We enjoyed spending Mother's Day with my Mom's family in Colorado Springs.

I LOVE being these two's Mama!

We had a rather bummer last day of school.
This picture is staged.
The preschoolers last day of school was actually cancelled due to muddy roads.

This is actually how she felt about it.

But what a great year of preschool she had!
She is already very much looking forward to kindergarten in the fall!!

I got to meet Baby Wade at the hospital.
But the rest of the gang hadn't met him yet, so we made a trip to Kiowa to visit Baby Wade, Maddie, Aunt Katie and Uncle Will.
Gunner LOVES babies!

 

The kids got to go to Vacation Bible School in Kit Carson.

They had a lot of fun learning about God and playing with friends!

I am SO proud of this girl.
She was one of only three, out of all the age groups, {and by far the youngest} to memorize all of her Bible verses for the week!!

We branded Daddy's calves last weekend.

GW was into rope tricks and riding his horse, but didn't want anything to actually do with branding calves.

T on the other hand, was eager to get right in the middle of the action this year.

And...Miss Tressie has been playing T-Ball.
"Tressie's my name and T-Ball's my game," she says!
She's so the kid that literally waves and yells, "hi Mom" from the field!

I'd say that our summer is off to a pretty awesome start!!