We got paddle boards and a paddle boat. When it's hot and muggy, this lake is perfect!
Replacing all the old gross, with new. I'm starting to get excited about this now!
Miles
We love it when the grandkids come play!
Dex
Nora
All the floor is on!
Dean and I have been putting up walls. This long wall intimidated me! I was not sure I could lift it. The wall was laying down, so you couldn't see it from the street. A young man, like maybe 25 years old, stopped by on his bike, and wanted to know what the plan for this house was. He also offered to help if we ever needed it. What?!!! Did this guy just fall from Heaven?! We told him we would love help right this second! With the three of us, we were able to stand the wall up no problem. We made a new friend that day. His name is Emil. He stops by and checks on us. He has a cottage over by Lake Michigan, and has used the flooring and our stove from this house for his cottage.
Another neighbor, Mark, wanted to help out, but really couldn't, so he hired 3 guys to help us put us trusses!
So to put up the remaining walls, and the trusses, we had Emil, Marks three men, and Dean and I.
Mike came up and helped us put up the front walls. We had to wait till the trusses were in before we put the front walls on.
This! This is why it's worth all the work and headache to be in Michigan!
Dex, Nora, Ej, and Miles
Deaner
We are starting to look like a real house!
Diving meets and soccer games. This is so fun for me!
Putting house wrap on.
We got all the house wrap on, but don't have the windows in yet. That's the next step.
So the house is wrapped and we can't see out. Emil stopped by on his way out of town and offered his house to us for the weekend. So kind of him, but we didn't bring stuff to spend the night. Dean is working on the plumbing, and outside, sirens start going off. Our phones both got alerts on them, telling us to get to the lowest part of our house, stay away from windows, etc. What?! We got down to the main floor, and out of nowhere comes this crazy storm! The power went out. We can't look out and see what is happening, because we don't have windows! Such an eerie feeling. We had no idea how things were going to turn out. I pushed the plastic back to snap a picture of what is going on out there. So much water!
After the storm passed, we ventured outside. The neighbor were heading over to our house to see how we had weathered the storm. Apparently our yard is higher than the other yards. Out by our firepit was low, but other than that, our backyard doesn't have any standing water.
Where our garage will be, there was quite a big puddle. We will need to figure that out.
In between our neighbors yards, there was a lake big enough for the kids to bring out the kayaks and paddle around.
We drove around our neighborhood to check on our friends. Janine was out in her yard, cleaning up branches and checking for damage, looks like she avoided much damage. There were lots of huge branches in the roads in the neighborhood. Next we drove past Emil's house, to check that out for him. His did fine, but his driveway was a a pond. Looks like there was no standing water in his yard other than the driveway.
Since we didn't have power, we headed back to Amanda's house to spend the night. Our truck was out of gas, and it gets about 10 miles per gallon, so we were in trouble...Since the power was out in Commerce, the gas pumps weren't working. We got on the freeway, and were a little nervous about our situation! We saw a town with lights on, so there was hope! the first gas station we got to had power, but no gas! How crazy! the next gas station had gas, and power! such a relief. We mad it to Amanda's, and read about what was going on around our house. Newton is the road we take out of our subdivision. They closed down Newton because there were 3 downed power lines on that road. Oops! We had no idea. There was so much water and downed trees that we didn't see the power lines. Someone had taken a chain saw, and cut one of the downed trees so one car at a time could get around the trees. Three tornados had been confirmed. So crazy!
Amanda's house was not even affected by this storm. It was great being with them, but weird not knowing how our house and neighbors were doing.
So storm hit on Saturday, and Monday we headed back over to our house. We were still without power, so at this point, we lost all the food in our fridge and freezer. We still had a flushing toilet, so our life was pretty good. Our friends are on wells, so without power, they didn't have water either.
We wanted to keep working on our house, which was a challenge. Dean didn't have power for his tools, so we decided we could install windows. Dean had to use a hand saw to make any adjustments to window openings, and he could us a hammer and nails to install.
Doing this project without power was interesting to say the least. Most businesses were closed. The banks were closed. Ace hardware was kind of open...not lights on, so they met you at the door, they didn't allow customers inside. You told them what you needed, and they would take a flashlight, and go find what you asked for. It was cash only. And with the banks closed, that created a little bit of a challenge. At this point, we had no idea how long the power would be out. we were on day 3 without power.
The lake level has risen about 6 inches. The water used be be below our dock, now it's bumps into our dock. Now the ducks can easily get on the dock, so we have lots of ducks...and lots of duck poop!
