The Days of Frazier

Here comes the snow!

2008-12-17T21:07:00.000-08:00

No pictures of the snow yet today, but it has snowed over 10 inches. It's still snowing as strong as it has been since early this morning and I think it'll get up to 12+ in. pretty soon. Hope everyone has there shovels ready. Anyway, some pics of the kiddos that I think are great from the last month. Also, made it home with the Christmas tree this year. No mishaps. Hope everyone is doing well.

Broken Camera

2008-12-02T17:51:00.000-08:00

Just after I got all fired up to get this blog updated on a more regular basis, our camera decided to break. Not to worry however, Heidi was able to pick up a nice little Panasonic Lumix. Rob has one and Heather does too. Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving and are looking forward to the holidays. Here are a few pictures to catch up. Get some more up soon.

Hannah Montana stopped by during Halloween. It was the best of both worlds.

Elise and her friend Caitlyn at Heather and Jason's Octoberfest. No those aren't brewski's!

Elise and Riley in the tub

Tire Swing

2008-11-08T08:18:00.000-08:00

We were able to get one good October day in before the rain came. Here's Elise on the tire swing at Coeur d' Alene City Park. She gets a little dizzy.

Long time coming

2008-10-30T19:27:00.000-07:00

After the summer off, I'm ready to get back to this blogging thing again. Sorry to all who checked in to see the family progress. I will make an effort to be more regular with my posts. We've had a busy summer and there is too much to put it all in words so I hope to catch you all up with some pictures. Everyone is great. Riley is growing to be a chunk and is four months old. Elise is every bit a three year old and seems to get smarter every day. Heidi is healthy after baby and enjoyed spending the summer at home with the kiddos. I have been plugging away at work with some time hear and there to play. Hope you enjoy.

I stole this photo

2008-06-22T15:13:00.001-07:00

This was on my parents blog and I thought it was such a great photo I had to steal it.

I also just now figured out how to take video on my phone and post it to the site. I got this shot completely by accident. I was trying to just take a picture of Elise going down a slide at her cousin Cooper's birthday party today when I realized I was actually taking video. Anyway, I hope it works. Let me know if you can't see it.

Born

2008-06-19T07:22:00.001-07:00

Riley William Frazier was born on June 15th at 11:03 p.m. He weighed in at 7.6 pounds and 21 in. long. Mom and baby are both healthy and big sister Elise so happy to have her little brother here. Dad got the best father's day present you could get!

Riley William Frazier

2008-05-27T21:28:00.001-07:00

Heidi peeked! The cat's out of the bag. Here is a sneek preview of our baby boy, Mr. Riley William Frazier!

Elise's 3bd

2008-05-27T21:13:00.000-07:00

Elise turned three the other day and we had a party at the jump place out in Hayden. Good times. Cousins, friends, grandparents, aunts and uncles were all present. Speaking of present, Elise got more than enough. She will be busy trying on all her new outfits and breaking in all the new toys until her next b-day. Elise wanted me to make sure I said thanks to all of you who gave her such great gifts and also thanks to all of you who came out to the party!

St. Joe Flood

2008-05-27T21:00:00.001-07:00

The Joe is flooded big time. I was in the neighborhood and stopped by to check out the property and it was entirely inaccessible. It might be until the end of June or early July until there is any camping out at the Joe. I couldn't get any pics of the folk's deck and property but I could see it from the road and it looked like an island among all this water. I could see that the deck was intact and that the water was pretty much right under the deck footings. Looks like it held well. Might be a shorter camping season this year on the Joe. Fishing might be a little late this year as well.

Poker Run

2008-05-21T21:42:00.000-07:00

Rob, Uncle Doug, and I rode in a Poker Run fund raiser for the Shoshone County Shrine Club last weekend. It was a lot of fun. I think that this year there were more than 600 riders on this thing. The trail was in great shape and we got real lucky with the weather. None of us pulled any good poker hands but Rob won a drawing at the end of the day. We were at the wheel bar so you might imagine that I might not remember exactly what it was that he won. That last thing I knew, there was someone riding a horse through the bar. Can't wait to go on this again next year.

Lester V. Smith Memorial Pike Derby

2008-05-08T22:02:00.001-07:00

A bunch of us competed in the pike derby again this year down in Harrison. I snagged this pic of Nason's humongous fish below from Joe's website (thanks Joe!). This thing was enormous. Too bad we didn't make it in to check in that morning (for various reasons not to be disclosed). He would have been in the money.

Momma Mia!

2008-05-08T19:50:00.000-07:00

Heidi is doing well with baby. She was able to get some photos taken the other day at a photography studio. The photographer wanted to use Heidi as a pregnancy model on her website and so did the photos free. The site is capturedbyellie.com. More pics should be posted on her site soon. You can access more of the photos taken that day by going to the site, clicking on 'client area' and then typing 'heidi' into the password field. The pictures are all really great. The photographer is actually going to display a large print of one of the shots of Heidi at the Ironwood Starbucks here in town. Not sure which one yet but they all look good.

In other Frazier news:

We've had most of the disturbed site around the house hydroseeded. Weather has been good for growing grass so that will be nice to have that in.

Hope to tackle the rest of the driveway soon. We are getting bids on house paint right now.

Elise and I went fishing at the stock pond at Post Falls park last weekend. No luck but had fun at the park after.

Doghouse

2008-04-20T18:44:00.000-07:00

I got back from a good visit to Boise yesterday morning. Saw Krista and Darren, The Nails, and Bret, Elizabeth, and the Coppess kids. Everybody was doing great and it was good catching up. Today, Elise and I worked on a doghouse for the Brew and Wyatt. She's pretty handy. Here's the progress so far. We'll keep you up to date on this latest project.

The Melt

2008-04-14T20:01:00.001-07:00

CHEESE!!!

I'm off to Boise for the week for a meeting so I thought maybe a quick post will tide me over until next time. It warmed up quite a bit this last weekend and we are now seeing some of the effect of that given that we have had a lot of snow. The creek across the road has been slowly on the rise and now it has crested it's banks and has completely filled the fields across the road. Here are a few pics. Aside from that not much has been happening. Looking forward to more good weather for sure. We should be painting the house soon and are going to be looking at finishing up the driveway on towards the end of the month. The Lester V. Smith Pike Tourney is at the end of April and me and Clute are going to take the trophy this year I am fairly confident. Heidi continues to do well with the baby. All is on schedule for June. Until next time.

Wow.

2008-04-03T20:10:00.000-07:00

It's been over a month. What can I say. I was actually looking over the blog the other day and realized that this thing has been going for over a year now. I was thinking about doing a best of and thought, I haven't even posted for the last month! Anyway, we're still here and we are settling into our new home. The weather has been crazy here. We had seven inches of snow the other day. It has been an unusual winter with over 150 inches of accumulated snowfall. Heidi is doing well with baby to be named later. All has gone well so far with doctor appointments and with the general well being of Heidi and the baby. So, we keep looking forward to June when baby to be named later will actually be named. Here are a few pics of our recent happenings in the Frazier household.

Elise with Josh Pelczar over in Seattle on a girls trip with mom.

Dad was fishing at Rocky Ford Creek. The fishing was goooooood!

Then, it snowed.

It was Easter

Then, it snowed again.

It has melted since but we are holding out for more. It's April already! This has been one of the longest winters I have ever experienced! Next up, Elise's birthday!

Stay tuned for baby yet to be named!

President's Day

2008-02-18T12:50:00.000-08:00

Ok, last post for today. I had the day off so I'm catching up. Anyway, Heidi is off to Boise and Elise and I are fending for ourselves. We spent most of the morning outside. It was a beautiful day. We played in the snow and hopped on the new snow plow and cruised down to the lake for some 'ice skating'. Pretty good day to be outside.

Ultrasound Pics

2008-02-18T09:40:00.001-08:00

Heidi had her Doctor appointment for the ultrasound on Valentines Day. Everything looked real good and we were informed that the baby is progressing well. We celebrated with lunch at Beverly's! Heidi is feeling good and is due in June. The date that everyone seems to agree on is June 29th. Just in time for summer. We decided not to find out what the sex is and are anticipating the surprise. We are very happy that the baby's development is progressing well and that it is healthy. Look forward to some belly pics in the near future!

Welcome to SETI

2008-02-18T09:08:00.000-08:00

We have decided to begin our own independent search for extraterrestrial intellegence here in Fernan. We have the hardware mounted on the eve of the house and we have been listening intently for sounds of life out there. So far, we have only been able to get a little tv reception and some internet signals. The tv is coming through in Hi-Def though so that's nice. Check out the SETI Alien Telescopic Array. I think that we are pretty close to the same setup minus just a couple of dishes.

Here is our internal set-up. Elise is doing some hard scientific work here sifting through the miscellaneous television signals looking intently for signs of intelligence in our universe. She's prepared to put some long hours in.

The mouse is toast

2008-02-18T09:01:00.000-08:00

We got em. It took three nights and some different trap arrangements but we finally got our mouse. The bucket trap ended up not working quite as well as I would have liked. There was evidence that the mouse had nabbed some of the peanut butter on the can and that the can had failed to spin. I had to try a traditional mouse trap after that. I used peanut butter and that didn't work because the mouse just licked it off. I went with the old cheese standby after that and that finally did the trick. One down, who knows how many more to go. I decided not to post a pic because it was a particularly gruesome death for that rodent. Maybe next time.

Mouse Trap

2008-02-11T20:48:00.001-08:00

Elise and I found that we have some meece living with us in our new house and decided that we need to get rid of them. I have sprung my trap. If you have never tried a bucket trap before, check this out. It's a mouse slayer. Basically, the mouse walks up the ramp, reaches for some peanut butter spread out on a can that is on a dowel centered over the bucket. When weight is applied to the can, it spins, the mouse loses balance and falls into the bucket. Sweet ehh. I'll keep you posted of the mouse progress.

Folks, we are in and we have the net

2008-02-11T20:33:00.000-08:00

Hey all family and friends out there. We have been disconnected from the world for some time out here. We are in our new home! We moved in on Janurary 18th. We had a great crew! Thanks to all that helped out! We had family and friends in abundance and it made it such a great move if moves can be termed great. Anyway, much has happened since but I won't bore you with a great amount of detail. Instead, I'll give you the condensed version of the update. We moved in, it began snowing, we got our certificate of occupancy, it snowed some more, I bought a four-wheeler with a snow plow, it continued to snow, Heidi left me to go to San Diego and sunshine for a week, now it's raining and slushy. That pretty much brings us up to date. Oh, yeah! For all who don't know by now, we are expecting! Heidi is about 5 months and showing nicely. Doc appointment is Thursday this week for an ultrasound. Don't get too exited though. We have elected not to be informed of the sex. We'll keep you guessing for another 4 months. Good to be back in the blogosphere. Expect more from the Days of Frazier in the near future. Check out the latest pics of our goings on below.

Christmas Day

2007-12-26T20:50:00.000-08:00

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

2007-12-26T20:38:00.001-08:00

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!

2007-12-02T15:37:00.001-08:00

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

2007-12-02T15:23:00.001-08:00

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

2007-12-02T15:13:00.000-08:00

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.

2007-11-13T20:22:00.000-08:00

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!

2007-10-26T20:57:00.001-07:00

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

2007-10-18T19:43:00.001-07:00

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

2007-10-15T20:03:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-30T18:54:00.001-07:00

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

2007-09-20T20:10:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-15T17:04:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-15T16:54:00.001-07:00

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!

2007-09-05T17:32:00.001-07:00

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

2007-08-26T16:49:00.000-07:00

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

2007-08-23T18:48:00.000-07:00

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

2007-08-15T17:37:00.000-07:00

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

2007-08-14T17:31:00.001-07:00

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!

Excavation Update

2007-08-11T12:01:00.000-07:00

Here's a look at the home pad and driveway. As you can see it has been quite an undertaking. We are getting ready to pour the foundation for the house. Where Heidi and Elise are standing now will be the future basement just below the living room.

The driveway looking up toward the home site. It is at a 10% grade.

This is the slash pile that I foolishly tried to chip with a large rental chipper one beautiful 105 degree summer afternoon. As you can see, I didn't get very far.

This road was raised approximately 3 feet all from materials taken from our excavation! The neighbor wanted to raise the road bed to match the future Fernan Lake Road improvement and gladly took the material we needed to remove. Worked out pretty well for the both of us.

Elise likes it! She even got a new hairdo and purse to mark the occasion!

Camping Kids

2007-08-06T19:11:00.001-07:00

Elise, Roslyn, and Brennan had a lot of fun up at the river the other weekend checking out worms and crawdads!

2007-08-06T19:08:00.001-07:00

It's been busy. We have been doing a lot of this lately and so I have been neglecting the updates. We've been spending a lot of time up on the St. Joe and CDA Rivers. It's been hot! More to come!

Tiki Tiki

2007-07-08T21:48:00.000-07:00

Over the last two weekends, Holmes, myself, and various other assistants (Heidi, Mom, Uncle Doug, Aunt Ilene, Keith, Hayden, Logan, Becky, Randy, Mami) constructed a Tiki bar at the St. Joe river property. It turned out to be a beauty. It's located facing the river at the right hand end of the deck. We broke it in with a few cocktails the other night!

The Official T-shirt

2007-07-08T20:53:00.000-07:00

Oink! Here is a link to get yourself one of the official t-shirts for the St. Joe Smack Down River Ribs Cook Off! Just click here and you will be directed to a site where you can purchase the shirt.

The Driveway Continues

2007-06-25T21:00:00.000-07:00

Bruce and I were out this evening surveying the rest of the retaining walls and the home site location. Actually, Bruce was surveying and I was following him around hammering in the stakes. He uses a sweet GPS unit that makes for a quick job of things. It really gives us a good sense of how things will lay out. Tomorrow, we have a geotechnical engineer coming out to do an evaluation of the soils. This is one of things required by the civil engineer who did the plans and the county won't release the building permit without the report. It could turn out for the good for us though because as we have worked up the driveway, we have discovered about 1/3 of it is very rocky and we will find out from her if it needs to be retained. If all goes well and we don't have to retain that section, it could save us some money. Everyone cross your fingers. Anyway, enjoy the photos!

This will be our view!!!!

Driveway

2007-06-17T20:18:00.001-07:00

This is about a weeks worth of excavation on the driveway. We are finally substantially underway! We will be putting a large boulder retaining wall on the left hand side of the driveway. It should look real nice. I anticipate that they will begin to put that in place over the next couple of weeks. We'll keep you posted as we get further up the hill.

Joe Dworshak

2007-06-06T21:30:00.001-07:00

Last weekend we went down to the Dworshak Reservoir for some fishing and to enjoy the 90 plus degree weather. Heidi had a program in Lewiston so Elise and I tagged along and stayed with Mom at the new Best Western in Orofino below Dworshak. It was fun! You wouldn't believe that the water temp in the Reservoir was 75 degrees! For June that is incredible. The next day, we traveled up to the St. Joe to stay with my parents at the Joe property. We had a lot of fun just hanging out, went for a dinner cruise and almost sunk my boat, and had lots of good drink and food. Too much fun!

Memorial Day Weekend

2007-06-06T21:20:00.001-07:00

1. On a hike to Settler's Cedar Grove near Murray, ID.
2. Dad and Elise roasting a marshmallow.
3. Scrap and Elise checking out some worms for the days fishing.

Mom was there too but no pictures showed up with her in them!!!! We had lots of friends come up and despite the rainy weather, we had a good time. We also went to the Pritchard Tavern for the first time and discovered that it was a real gem. The food was good, service was good, and the Olympia's were cold!

Back on track!

2007-06-06T20:50:00.001-07:00

Ok! We have got the redesign completed. The reason that we went back to the drawing board was because the original plan would have absolutely destroyed the hillside. We did not want that so we decided to retain the entire driveway with large boulders. None of these decisions are easy because of the cost involved but we did not want to ruin what had inspired this project in the first place. We had quite a bit of a wait but hopefully our patience will pay off and things will look good when we're all done. We're excited that things are moving forward again. Today I drove out after work and checked things out. Our builder was out on the property today putting in the stormwater controls and by the beginning of next week, actual construction of the driveway will begin. We are really happy to be back on track again.

Catching Up

2007-05-21T18:25:00.000-07:00

A lot has been going on the last couple of weeks worthy of posting here. First off, Elise had her 2nd birthday which happened to be the same day as Mother's Day. We had a nice b-day party at Maw and Holmes' house.

Heidi and I went to San Diego courtesy of Merck for all of Heidi's hard work this last year. It was first class. Loads of good food, sailing, massages, and of course wine as you can see. We were able to meet up with Todd, Jeannie, and Rose for dinner at Peohe's one night. Dinner was yummy. We stayed at the historic Hotel Del Coronado.

Lastly, we ran into a little bit of a snag on the house project. It had to do with some driveway design issues but we have worked to resolve that over the last two weeks. So, we should (cross your fingers) be back on track by the end of this week. Hopefully my next post will be a picture of that track hoe digging out our driveway. Keep checking back.

Finally!!!!!!!!!!

2007-05-01T18:32:00.000-07:00

Permits!!!

2007-04-26T18:59:00.000-07:00

Kootenai County has finally graced us with their permission to begin building our home. As you might imagine, Heidi, Elise, and I are quite excited about getting things going. It has been a long and arduous process up to this point dealing with engineers, architects, the builder, and Kootenai County. It will be nice to be able to see physical progress on the site. Keep checking back in. We'll be knee deep in this thing before to long.

English Point Hike

2007-04-15T16:53:00.000-07:00

Elise and I went for a hike this morning out at English Point. It has been rainy here so it was nice to get outside. I got a good shot of Elise checking out a centipede that we found on the trail. Brewster and Wyatt had fun chasing deer.

Easter at the Schumacher's

2007-04-09T21:03:00.000-07:00

We spent Easter Sunday over at Russ and Penny's this year. Amy, Blaise, Chase, and Grace were up to Fernan visiting from San Francisco. All the cousins had a ton of fun hanging out with each other. Shown here is Elise and her new Easter dress, the kids digging for worms in Grandman and Grandpa's yard, dinner at the kid's table, and the aftermath of the afternoon in the driveway. Happy Easter!!

Waiting for permits

2007-04-02T17:37:00.000-07:00

Here's a few pics of the engineering plan for the driveway up to the house if you can make it out. We have submitted all our plans to the county and have been waiting for about a week now. They are still about a week and a half out so we will continue to wait patiently.

April Snowman

2007-04-02T17:35:00.000-07:00

I thought it was supposed to be Spring already.

2007-03-31T20:59:00.000-07:00

The weather has kept our activities at a pretty low level these days. It's been raining a ton but thankfully today we were able to get outside a bit so Heidi, Elise, and I headed down to Hayden Lake and fed the ducks. Can't wait for summer!!

House Progress

2007-03-26T19:52:00.000-07:00

It looks like we are finally going to be submitting for our building permits with Kootenai County tomorrow. I spoke with our Engineer today at Lake City Engineering and he had just completed the site disturbance package which is required to be submitted for properties situated on steep slopes such as ours. The purpose of the package is to plan for drainage and erosion controls during construction and requires engineering. It seems like it's taken some time to finally get to this point and we are hopefull for a quick turnaround at the county. Once permits are issued, we'll get scheduling figured out for breaking ground. If all goes well, we are looking at the middle of April to get things going. That's the latest and greatest.

Bathtime Fun

2007-03-21T21:53:00.000-07:00

Hayden and Logan spent the evening with us tonight and we had lots of fun watching movies, eating go-gurts, and having bath time. Here's a great shot of the kids in the bath having a good time.

Rocky Ford Creek

2007-03-13T20:36:00.000-07:00

Rocky Ford Creek was another great trip this year. It has been about a 5 year annual trip with usually more drinking than fishing but a great way to break the winter ice and get the rods moving for the spring. We caught a few fish. These rainbows are tough. Chris had the right bug. It's some white contraption that he came up with that the trout just suck up off the bottom. Anyway, the picture here exemplifies about how serious we are about the fishing. I love this trip.

Goofy Girl

2007-03-08T17:31:00.000-08:00

Elise was dressing up in Mom's stuff last night. She's pretty funny in Mom's hat!

Congratulations Heidi!

2007-03-08T07:38:00.000-08:00

Wonderwoman has struck again! Heidi had her business review yesterday with her manager and recieved an unexpected pay raise and promotion to Executive Representative! Way to go!

Headed to Rocky Ford

2007-03-04T22:19:00.000-08:00

Next weekend a bunch of us are headed to Rocky Ford Creek in central Washington. Joe put up a site with a bunch of links and good info for the trip. Check it out.

http://www.joecode.com/outside/147/rocky-ford-creek-and-ponds

The site contains info on the creek, accomodations, flies, directions, etc. We have been going here every spring for about the last 5 years and have had a great time every year.

Year of the Pig

2007-03-04T20:36:00.000-08:00

Last night we celebrated the Chinese New Year with my parents Patty and Rob. This year is the Year of the Pig. The party was a wine tasting and pork roast event and was well attended. Rob sent me some stats on the party.

"We sent out approximately 48 invitations for this party, according to my after party analysis we had 23 of those invitations were sent to people who for whatever reason could not attend. 25 invitations resulted in the 50 individuals that did attend. That is playing the margins pretty closely to 50% return on the invitations. Just imagine if all individuals would have been able to attend. The tally could have been more like 85 or so at the party. That may have been a challenge, given the silverware, and other limitations. But at the same time that is the importance of people actually responding to an RSVP."

All in all, it was a lot of fun and a good time mingling with a pretty diverse crowd of folks. Lots of fun with family and friends! Lucia took a bunch of pictures so when we get those I'll throw some up.

Here is the wine list

Year of the Pig Party March 3^rd 2007 Wine List 45 Wine Guests

1. Beringer – Founders’ Estate Pinot Noir $10.99 2005 California

2. Mirassou Pinot Noir $10.29 2005 California

3. Barton & Guestier Pinot Noir $10.79 France

4. Red Bicylette Pinot Noir $ 9.99 2005 France

5. Faiveley Pinot Noir $17.49 2003 France

6. Parducci Merlot $ 8.79 2004 California

7. Whitestone Reserve Merlot $18.00 2001 Lake Roos., Wa.

8. Duck Pond Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon $ 9.99 2002 Washington St.

9. Franciscan Oakville Estate Cabernet Sauvignon $25.99 2003 California

10.. Genesis Hogue Cabernet Sauvignon $14.00 2005 Washington

11. Rosemount Estate Diamond Cabernet Merlot $11.99 2004 Australia

12. Le Grand Noir Cabernet – Shiraz $ 9.00 2004 France

13. Penfolds Bin 389 Cabernet – Shiraz $25.00 2003 Australia

14. Le Rime – Banfi Chard /Pinot Grigio $ 8.99 2005 Italy

15. Thierry & Guy Fat Bastard Shiraz $10.00 2004 France

16. Villa Maria Sauvignon Blanc $13.79 2006 New Zealand

17. Terrazas de los andes Malbec $ 8.50 2005 Argentina

18. Di Maio Norante Sangiovese $10.00 2005 Molise, Italy

19. Latah Creek Huckleberry d’Latah $10.00 Spokane, Wa

20. Alquezar Moristel $11.00 2004 Spain

21. Waterbrook Red Table Wine $12.00 2004 Washington

22. Lady in Red Keistrel 4th Red Table Wine $15.95 2004 Washington

23. Menage a Trois Red Table Wine $12.00 2005 California

24. Pillar Box Red Red Table Wine $10.00 2005 Australia

25. Snoqualmie Reisling $12.00 2005 Washington

Total (25) Total: ($306.00) Average cost per bottle ($12.24)

Travels

2007-03-03T13:05:00.001-08:00

February has been a busy month for travel with our family. We were able to head south to Zihuatenejo, Mexico for a week at the beginning of the month. We went with Becky, Keith, Todd, and Jeanne and had a very good time lounging, slurpin brewski's, fishing, celebrating the girl's 30th birthdays, and eating chiliquiles. The temp was in the 90's range and it was good to thaw out. The day we went fishing, Keith caught about a 130 lb. sailfish, Todd caught a 15 lb. dorado, and I caught a 25 lb dorado. After we returned Heidi was off to Atlanta, GA for a work meeting where she recieved the VP Premier award which just happened to come with a trip to San Diego among other goodies! Way to go Heidi! Looks like more sun and fun at the Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego towards the middle of May. When Heidi returned, I was of to Washington D.C. for a work conference for 4 days. I was able to cruise around town for a few hours each day and was able to see quite a bit. I visited the Museum of the American Indian, The Natural History Museum, the National Art Gallery, and The National Geographic Society Headquarters. It was good to come home though! We missed our little girl pretty bad with all the travels!

Big Head Todd and the Monsters

2007-03-03T12:28:00.000-08:00

We went to see Big Head Todd and the Monsters last night at the Big Easy in Spokane. Heather and Jason got themselves and Heidi and I tickets for Christmas. They put on a great show as usual. I recommend going to see them if you ever get a chance. Heidi and Heather jumped in the band meet and greet line after the show and Heidi was able to get my hat autographed by the band!

New House

2007-03-03T11:48:00.000-08:00

We are building a new home and I thought it might be nice to document the progress online so that other interested family/friends can keep tabs on our progress. We have nearly everything prepared at this point to submit for county building permits. We're hopeful that we will be breaking ground within the month! Keep checking back for updates.