Blaze, Spirit, Blaze

Good weather for a family trip to our land this afternoon to set some fires and clear a little brush. It was chilly but the fires were warm. Shimmer and Shine passed the time watching a small mouse that had taken cover in a pile of firewood left behind this week.

"Shine, Jesus, shine, fill this land with the Father's glory; Blaze, Spirit, blaze, set our hearts on fire."

Our New Old House

We've been refining our house design with Steve Haskell of Connor Homes over the last few weeks. Here are the latest drawings and floorplans of our dream (click an image to view a larger rendering). We will be truly blessed to be able to build this house...

Beginning the Clean-Up

Now the clean-up begins... it seems overwhelming with a pile of trees and more stumps than you can imagine. Daddy has been making smaller piles of brush and we've had some people coming to take whatever firewood they would like!

Clearing the Lot

It was early March, when the trees came down. Jim R. came with his new John Deere skidder, and even offered Shine a ride, although he was too shy to go. We drove out after storyhour at the library today to watch some of the trees fall. With the snow spilling off of them it was a sight to see. Sad that so many trees need to go, but Jim confirmed most were either diseased or a danger to the location of our new house. We plan to plant some more evergreens, and of course trees for Shimmer and Shine, when the house is finished. The lot still has trees bordering on all sides and a few big, old hardwoods out front. It will be a beautiful setting when our home is built...

This Land is Our Land

After spending over two years looking for a new place to call "home", we finally decided to purchase this wooded lot, in a new subdivision close to town. Our closing was today. The lot is just over 2 acres and I really look forward to Shimmer and Shine growing up here and having a wonderful yard to play in, in the years to come. We can't wait to move their swingset over, which is still at our old house. Lots of trees to cut in the meantime...

Visiting Connor Homes

In January, just before we were ready to order another houseplan (one which we loved the floorplan but had reservations about the exterior character of the home), we decided we owed it to ourselves to contact Connor Homes, just to see if building with them was in the realm of possiblity. After several phone conferences in mid to late January with their director of business development, Gail Rice, our family made the trip to Middlebury, VT and visited Connor Homes on February 12th, 2010. We made a day of it and spent the morning working with Steve Haskell on the exterior design of our new home and the afternoon with Kate Fitzgerald on the interior floorplan and design. We couldn't have asked for a more knowledgable or better-suited design team. Before leaving, Gail gave us a tour of the factory. Shimmer took the photos above. Manufacturing was already done for the day, but we did get to meet most of the crew and even the owner, Mr. Mike Connor. It was the perfect ending to a productive day!