Christmas Day

Princess Elise enjoyed Christmas day with family on both sides. We all went to my parents and had Christmas Eve crab dinner and opened presents. It was fun seeing Krista, Darrin, and Lucia all in from out of town. We had Christmas morning at our house and then off to Heidi's parents for brunch and later dinner. We made one more stop at my parents again on Christmas night to say hi. We were on the go and had a good time with all the family. Here's some photos of Elise with her Christmas gear. Happy Holidays.

Getting Closer

Hi all. Hope everyone is having a good December. We have made a lot of progress with the house. Here are some updated pictures from inside.




Looking in from the entryway you can see the entire living space. The kitchen living area and dining area are all one large room. The counter tops were just installed and Russ and Mike, the finish carpenter, have put some detail into the bar front. The opening at the end of the room leads to the master bed and Elise's room. The the left is the office and behind the kitchen is the guest bath.


Russ has wrapped all the windows in vertical grain fir. He has done an exceptional job and the woodwork adds so much to the look of the windows.

















Guest bath is all tiled and grouted. This one just needs a few touch ups and a little clean up and it'll be ready for the plumbers.

















Master bath tub surround and shower still in progress. Just have to finish up with some small pieces and grout it in.

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays friends and family! We have been pretty busy as usual moving forward with the house project but we have managed to continue with our normal fun stuff. We had Thanksgiving with both my folks and Heidi's, went to Disney on Ice for Elise, and went Christmas tree hunting with a group of our friends. I have been pretty neglectful of taking pictures of the house lately. Russ, Rob, myself, and my buddy Nate have been doing a lot of work. Russ put in the cabinets, Rob and I have been installing flooring, and Nate has started on our bathroom tiles. I'll get some pics posted soon. I put together a couple of posts below so check those out as well. Stay warm.

Elise and her many outfits

Snow Bunny Elise



















Elise is stylin for winter time















Keep rockin. Nice mohawk.



















Dressed up and ready to go to Disney on Ice's Princess Wishes

The Christmas tree that didn't make it home

We went Christmas tree hunting this morning. This little tree caught our attention and we were pleased to bring it home with us for the holidays. Little did we know that it would blow out the back of the truck on the way home and then get smashed to smithereens by another pick up. It was disappointing but we managed. We went to Lowes and grabbed another tree. We had fun going tree hunting as usual though. We have been going with the same group of friends for several years now and look forward to doing this every year. Next year I'm bringing some rope.

Wow, it's been a while. A lot has been going on during the days of Frazier. Mostly, activity has centered around the construction of the house. I have been busy with work recently attending our annual VR conference down in Boise and then going through an administrative review following a brief absence of work for the annual mule deer hunt. I will have to refer you to The Gregory Family Basket for pictures from that adventure. Two of our party were successful with two nice bucks. The rest of us will have to wait until next time. It was good being in hunting camp again.

The saga continues with the house. Real progress is being made as you can see by the following pictures of the construction. Russ, Rob, and I have been working every weekend trying to get the deck completed. After that is done, we'll move inside to begin work on the flooring, finish work, cabinetry, etc. We are hopeful that we'll be ready for a January move in.

Update: I have posted links to other blogs of family note on the side bar of the site. Take some time to peruse if you get a chance.

The slash pile has been burned!! I was pretty happy about that after the torture I endured trying to chip it with an industrial chipping machine. Burn baby burn.















Here's the deck. We're about 3/4 the way there with the decking. It's hard to see but the deck is about 11 feet in width and 45 feet long. It is going to be party deck central. Can't wait to bbq.
We got it piped for gas baby so no havin to change out the propane tank!





























Here is a view from inside looking from the kitchen out to the great room. All of the windows, electrical, hvac, and plumbing have been installed. The drywallers have been mudding and taping and will hopefully be done by the end of this week.















Here is a view from across the way. The roof is on and the siding is underway. Things are coming together.

Sleepover!

The Hall girls are having a sleepover at our house tonight. Pete and Mindy got tickets to the World Series in Denver this weekend. Pete's a huge Red Sox fan and should get a chance to see them take it again this year. Go Sox! Meanwhile, I'm off to the new house to keep chipping away at the deck and other fun housing projects.

some pics

Ok. Here are some pics of the house. I have been having some difficulty getting them up but here are a few. Since this picture has been taken, the roof has been loaded and most all of the windows have been installed. Russ and I are going out this weekend to install exterior doors and do some work on the deck. Enjoy!

House Progress

Things have been moving forward well. The windows are mostly installed, the roof is felted and was loaded today to be shingled this week, the plumbing has been roughed in, and we meet with the electrician on Thursday. For some reason, I was unable to upload images tonight so I will try again later. We also have some great pics from The Orchard's son Logan's birthday party out in Greenbluff. He turned two and we all went out and got pumpkins and did the birthday thing. I'll get that all up later.

Putting on the deck

Russ, Rob, and I put up the framing this weekend for the deck. We got lucky with the weather and didn't get rained on. Everything went up really well thanks to Russ's knowledge and experience.














You can see also that most of the roof trusses have been put up. We are waiting for a few structural beams to come in before the final components are finished. If the builders get all of the sheeting on the roof by the end of the coming week, we will be getting ready to begin the roofing next weekend. Things continue to move forward!

Upstairs Framed

It's really starting to look like a house! Only five days from the last post and the upstairs is framed up. They've even started to sheet the exterior. The plan for tomorrow is to start to put on the roof trusses. You can see them stacked up on the back right hand side of the picture. I went out today and walked around and it is really amazing to actually be able to have some kind of perspective about the actual size of the space we will be living in. We only have 3 months left (barring in unforeseen circumstances) before this thing is ready to move into. We can't wait to have everyone out to celebrate our new home. First things first though. We still have a lot of work to do.











Here is the view from the other side of the road. You can really see that the scope of the excavation has been rather large. We have been looking at how this should re-vegetate and are pretty confident that it will blend in nicely with the hillside when they hydroseed it in October with a natural mix of grasses etc. We still have to choose exterior colors and we are looking at something that won't make this thing glare from the hillside. That's coming up! Stay tuned!

Basement Framed In

The basement was framed in last week and the sheeting put on for the upstairs floor. You can see that the lumber has been delivered to begin the exterior wall framing early next week. In the background, the well pump is being installed. You can also see on the right that more dirt has been moved to meet the county's cut-back slope requirements for our driveway. Things are moving along well!

It's Almost Shootin' Time

Bruce, Nate, and I headed out to go an prep a blind for opening day. It looks like it is going to be on October 6th this year. We got a box of clays and popped away at them for a while this morning. It was painfully apparent to us that we probably will need to do more shooting prior to opening day. It was also painful shooting 3 in. goose load after goose load. I put Nate's sweatshirt between my shoulder and the gun because my pump is real light and kicks like a mule. Can't wait to opening day!

Foundation Slab and Underground Plumbing In!

The foundation slab was poured today. Elise and I went out after work and checked it out. All of the underground plumbing has been installed and there also has been a drain installed around the entire foundation. Framing is scheduled to start on Friday!!!!! This thing should really start looking like a house soon!



Here is our new power pole. The well has been dug and is just to the left of the second pole. We're good to go with all our utilities except for the propane tank. That will come in play in a couple of months.



I know this has nothing to do with the foundation or the house but it was a beauty I caught up on the Clark Fork last weekend with my brother in laws Keith, Casey, and my nephew Daniel. Enjoy.

Walla Walla Anniversary

Heidi and I celebrated 7th Anniversary touring the Walla Walla Valley wine country. We spent three days and visited several wineries in the area. It was a lot of fun and since it is fairly close to home, very easy to get to for a quick three day weekend. There are over 130 individual wineries in the area and we only scratched the surface. Wine touring in Walla Walla is fairly easy. There are three different areas that hold the majority of the wineries. You can find good information on the wineries and a map of the area at the Walla Walla Valley Wine Alliance website. It has a ton of info and you can pretty much plot out your tour using the map. I've included links to the wineries that we visited under the pictures. Check them out.


Waterbrook Winery


Sleight of Hand Cellars


Heidi and I were able to spend one morning at the local farmers market. Lots of people and vendors were there. The produce was right off the farm and cheap.


Spring Valley Vineyards


Northstar Winery


Saviah Cellars


Basel Cellars Estate Winery


Preston Premium Wines



Here is all the goodies we brought home from our trip. I also included a couple of links to a few wineries that we visited that we didn't get any pictures of. We would definitely go back.

Fort Walla Walla Winery
Va Piano Vineyards
Zerba Cellars

N.I. Fair

Elise and I went to the fair on Wednesday night. She had fun in the critter barn with all the animals. She wasn't afraid to touch the snake or pet an alligator. She had lots of fun.

Foundation Progress

Footings are poured and the forms for the foundation walls are being set. They are supposed to finish the walls tomorrow and pour the concrete. They'll come back on Friday and strip the forms. By this weekend we will have a complete foundation minus the floor. The plumbers will come in after the foundation drains are installed and is backfilled and do all the initial plumbing. After that the floor will be poured and it will be time to frame!



Elise is checking out the future rec. room. This is taken from where the Laundry room will be.



We are going to have a patio out front on this lower level instead of a deck like we had originally planned. We can make the patio bigger and that will help with not really having any yard to speak of.

Swim Lessons

Elise has been taking swim lessons this summer at a private pool down by NIC. She has been doing really well and has learned how to jump off the side. The photo is kinda blurry but you can see she's got some pretty good hops!


This is on the last day of swim lessons for the summer. Next up, Gymnastics!