2010-- can't wait

Well, the official last post for 2009. Maybe my resolution should be to post more often.

2009 was a great year but I can honestly say that I am looking forward to 2010. Main reason is the little one on the way in July. That's gonna be fun. Before I ramble on about the house I thought it might be a good idea to appreciate the finer things of 2009, so here we go:

1. Lisa is pregnant. I know I mentioned this as a 2010 thing but the blessing started in 2009 so I have to list it #1.

2. Haden Ryker: Our family being blessed with another great kid. He is a little under the weather right now but who could blame him: Ice, snow, then sun? God Bless West Texas.

3. Andi Brooke: The newest little Edwards and another great niece.

4. Masyn Paige: Celebrated her first birthday and started doing even cooler stuff like high fives, walking, being a great big sister.

5. Miles Cooper Ledbetter: Aaron and Kasey's new little boy made it right before 2010 and we are very happy for the new family.

6. 406 West Hay: (Address of our new house). A very exciting and long process but well worth all of it. As for the update on the house-- they have started on the cabinets and shelves inside all rooms in the house. Also, most of the baseboard has been installed and they are doing a great job. Everyday we get more excited, there are many empty cardboard boxes in our office ready to pack, to soon? I don't think so. Here are some pics:

Master Bedroom door with trim

Lisa's 9 foot shoe rack.

First Kitchen Cabinet and Pantry

Front Door from Inside

We will do our best to have more pics up soon.

We would like to thank our friends and family for a great 2009 and we look forward to the New Year with each one of you. We would also like to thank our friends and family for a wonderful Christmas.

Happy New Year and (new favorite quote) "We love you and their ain't a dang thing you can do about it." Author-some guy from the glowing rectangle in the other room.

It only gets better in 2010.

DJ and Lisa

A Different Kind of News

No this blog is not about the house!! Well for one because they haven't done anything in almost three weeks. But oh well, we have even more exciting news to share........

We are having a BABY!!!! We know, we know "ABOUT TIME"

We are really excited and feel truly blessed. We are expecting our new arrival in July. Here is a sonogram from earlier this week......

Exterior Done? I think :)

While we are waiting for the garage door to actually have a completed exterior, we are happy to update the blog with completed brick and stone pictures. 406 West Hay was extremely busy over the past two weeks with many different contractors as well as our builders. The stone and brick was finished earlier in the week with our front door being installed and covered for falling stone purposes.

Not just exterior, but the inside had a huge face lift with sheetrock installed in one day, yeah one day. These guys didn't joke around except for a few electrical boxes that were searched out later. Nothing a little mud can't fix. They also textured earlier this week and that took all of one day. We have ordered the crown molding and looking forward to all the other options ahead. Why is there 500 different types of faucets? Discuss... No good reason huh?

We will continue to update this blog but as you can tell I am definately not the best blogger. Lisa is better at the posts so maybe I should just stay on tech support side. By the way, 170 iTouche syncs will drive you crazy only to find that there are already app updates. Stupid Apple. I digress.

We might not be able to blog before Friday so we would like to wish our beautiful, sweet, adorable, perfect little neice, Masyn a very Happy Birthday!!! Looking forward to the party on Saturday and few high-fives.

Seriously to many faucet options.



DJ & Lisa

WOW!!! What a busy week!!

There have been many changes at the house this week. The biggest and the most exciting is that we have brick.... and it's on our house. And man, do they go fast!! They started bricking on Thursday and came Friday too. I was amazed at how much they got done. Now we are just praying that the weather stays nice for next week so they can get finished.

The house was also insulated this week. It was a really neat process. They tack up this netting and then take this large vacuum-like hose and blow in the insulation and the netting holds it in place. The insulation reminded me of cotton candy. Here is a pic of the guy blowing in the insulation.


They also delivered the rock for the entry way yesterday and the sheet rock is suppose to be there today. And hopefully they will get our front door up this weekend too. And soon it will be time to get started on the inside and here comes all of the decision-making that I keep putting off.

Exterior almost done

There has been pretty good progress on the house over the past few weeks. We have a few pictures below but we have not taken pictures of all the changes quite yet but here is a breakdown.

The house was shingled in less than two days so we are hoping the shingle crew also does drywall. I bet not. The electricians have ran what appears to be one to two miles of electrical cable and installed the HVAC unit above the garage. The correct windows were installed this past week as well as two exterior doors, the back door to the porch and small door leading out of the garage. The plumbers have installed the lines into one bathtub and ran the gas lines into the house.

The brick was delivered this past week but due to our current weather pattern they have pushed back the start date to tomorrow, or the next day, or "well maybe they'll show up next week." So we will be sure to post when the brick is unbundled.

Other than the house stuff, just trying to dodge H1N1. I'm going to wash my hands now.

The Pics

Cute Nieces

When we aren't picking out items for the house or making decisions, DJ and I love spending time with our two beautiful nieces. And not to brag, but I must say we have two of the most adorable nieces ever..........

Andi with Uncle DJ at the family fish fry

Masyn enjoying some banana

It's been awhile............

So I am not very good at updating this thing. Things at the house have slowed down a bit in the last couple of weeks but it does look a lot different from the last pics I posted. So here is a picture from a week or two ago. Since then the plumber and electrician have been working on the inside. When the electrician gets finished, hopefully this week, the house can be roofed. Yeah and then maybe it will soon get bricked. We have experienced a few bumps along the way, but overall we are really enjoying the experience.

It's really starting to look like a house now.....

What a busy last four days it has been at our lot. We went from having just a slab to it really looking like a house. It has been really awesome to watch such progress and to walk through OUR house. We feel truly blessed to be able to build this house and are very excited about what the future holds for us in our new home. But before we can do that we must first decide on a brick. Here are some pics from the last few days.....

FRIDAY

SUNDAY

MONDAY

Concrete & Lots of Lumber

Last Saturday while I was working in Lubbock and DJ was running errands, our phones were ringing off the hook with people calling and texting to tell us they were pouring our slab. Just one of the many joys of living in a small town. LOL We got home just in time to see them finish and oh yeah to make a few more decisions. Then on Monday they started delivering all of the lumber and are scheduled to start framing tomorrow. Here are some pics......

Our house to be....

After many months of meetings with builders and bankers, paperwork, and decision-making they have officially started building our house. They are still in the very early stages but it is exciting to see some progress. We hope to have a concrete slab in the very near future. Here are some pictures of the progress so far...........

I Promise Pictures

The plane finally made it and we made it home just in time to start the Monday workweek. Nothing like returning from the strip to 103 emails of technology problems mixed with junk. Lisa had to be at her new job first thing Monday and we agreed maybe another week of Vegas life was not such a bad idea. Wait, I just remembered why we can't do that - I am horrible at gambling. Lisa has all the luck then she would give me a couple of tickets to "donate" back.

Here are some pics...

Vegas TRIP

We are trying to return from our Vegas vacation today but we are stuck at the airport. We will have pictures soon. If the plane doesn't get here in another hour we are going to stay another week...

Family

Getting Started

We are just getting started so we hope you enjoy the upcoming posts.