The House, 9-15

I haven't posted in a while!  I feel like I don't have anything to say, but I guess I do have some pictures.  Saturday, Michael let Kara and I go on the boat with him, which was wonderful.  He just got it back after being repaired, and wanted to really run it to make sure the engine was in good shape.  Kara LOVES going fast, so she was up for it!  I wanted to eat a picnic lunch on the boat and take pictures, so Michael did that for me too.  We were so pleased to see that when we got home, Michael didn't have to wash his boat because there was no sludge line halfway up the boat from the water - the water here is clean enough that there was no residue left behind.  Sweet!  I'm planning to swim in that water next summer, so I'm glad to see it's so clean.

As soon as we got on the water, we could see our house up on the mountain.

View of our house from the lake.

I have a ton of those pictures.  :-)

Then we took off down the river at about 65 mph and stopped when I wanted to take pictures.  Kara held on tight and yelled, "faster!"  Maniac.

Today I drove around to find out what this is.  It is so big
it looks like a restaurant or something.

Nope.  It's a HOUSE!  Wow!

We saw a jet skier, driving like a maniac.  We watched him
flip, then flip it back over and keep going.  Michael said it
brought back memories of flipping the jet ski with Aunt
Kim at Lake Norman.  lol!

There's our house again, with the cause-
way in the foreground.  Michael said,
aw, there's power lines in the way!
I don't care.  :-)  There it is.  :-)

I like the light better in this one, but her mouth is full.
(And I don't like smiles when you don't show your teeth!)

There's the beach that is right down the road.  It has a play-
ground, sand, I think a volleyball net, and I think a
pavillion.  That's the beach I plan to go to next summer
when people can come visit us.

That look worries me.

This is what she was doing!  If Daddy
was "fishing," she said she was,
"grassing."  She would reach down and
pull clumps of grass onto the boat.
She has never been happier in her
life doing anything else.  It wasn't
slimy or anything, so I had no problem
with it!  And Michael says it all dies
over the fall and winter anyway.
P.S.  The water was literally 90 degrees.

See the bird?  He has some nerve not pausing to pose
for my camera.

I laid back and felt the boat sway in the tiny waves.  Even
though the clouds were gorgeous, I closed my eyes and
prayed a bit.

My view from the back of the boat.

She kept yelling, "grass for sale!"
lol!  She said I had to buy it if I wanted
to photograph it.  Since she was
charging pretend currency, I 'bought'
a bunch.  :-) 

I loved the islands in the middle of the lake.  I told Michael
we should have built our house THERE!  Totally undisturbed
and quiet and wild.  I guess it's a good thing we didn't ruin
all that.

See that bird?  He didn't stay long enough for me to get a
closer picture.

Then Michael met a friend and fished with him until dark.  Oh, I have good pictures he took for me.  Remind me to post those in a minute.  Kara and I went to the playground before we headed home.  The ice cream man came and she bought herself a popsicle.  It was gigantic and she is Kara, so she didn't eat even half of it.  Of course she picked the $2 one! lol!

But you know you're doing it right
when it's dripping down your arm.

Kara and I went home and cleaned up and watched the Alabama game.  She watched almost the whole thing with me.  I taught her the bit that I know, but I still have a lot to learn.  (Chips and homemade salsa made it super fun and Alabama winning made it a blast.)

Okay, here are Michael's pictures:

This plaque is hanging in our Sunday School room and I LOVE IT.  lol.

That settles it.

Monday we did school, laundry, etc.  Then when I took the trash to the curb, I looked up and was amazed at the stars.  As soon as Kara was done in the shower, I pulled her outside to look at them with me.  We could see less than 10 on a clear night in Maryland since we were so close to several cities.  Here we saw more than we could count.  It wasn't the insanely full sky I saw in Maine in the winter, but it was the most I've seen since then.  Probably the most Kara has seen.  She isn't one to pray out loud, even when asked to, but she broke out in prayer right there in our driveway and thanked God for a clear night so we could marvel at His stars.  What a special moment for me to witness.

I will get better at taking these, I promise.

Friday we went to get Kara new reading glasses and they were in by Monday afternoon!  They are both black with hints of blue.  They look fabulous on her.

Today is Tuesday and after school we couldn't wait to go to the library (they are closed Saturday afternoon, Sunday, and Monday).  Since she read Matilda by Roald Dohl in a day and a half, she had to wait for them to open before she got more books.  (We have watched the Matilda movie about 3 times already.)  She picked 2 Warrior cats books and I got her The Witches by Roald Dohl, The Borrowers, Alice in Wonderland, and Because of Winn-Dixie.  I'm not sure she knows these are for school, but they are.  I think she'll like them.  She loved Matilda.

After the library we went to the house.  (It's been almost a week!!)

Doesn't Mike Holmes say to put metal plates like this in
front of pipes and stuff?  Nice.

They've been working on the fuse boxes.
This is the back.

Here's the front.  Trust me, there is a whole
lot more plugged in than there used to be!

There are even a few....circuit breakers?
Is that what they're called?

The temporary ceiling is halfway done in the
tornado shelter so they can start that soon.

The vents now have pipes that run outside.

Well, they don't all go outside yet.  :-)

This is the inside of our garage.  I guess all
our electrical will go outside to the back
of the house - I guess the meter will be there.

Michael's boat garage looks like it has
a furnace skeleton in it.  I bet there is one
in our crawl space too.  Love those HVAC
guys.

Here is his fuse box / electric stuff.

More of those metal plates.

These show the HVAC in the boat garage.  The angled space on the sides of the large room upstairs won't have storage in it after all - it's for HVAC!

Here I am upstairs in the boat garage.
Can you see Kara playing in her sand
pile?  (We uncovered the back corner
for her to play in.)

It's funny how 81 degrees can feel so cool while you're sitting on your shaded plywood front porch with a nice breeze blowing, all the while watching the butterflies and boats.  Ah, I could stay there all day.  Mosquito bites, splintering plywood, and all.  <3