Baby Luke

On Saturday, Griffin and I drove to Sisters with my mom, Becca, Katrina, Sadie, and Finn to visit the Bensons and meet the newest member of their family. Luke Manuel was born on September 25th, so he was just 4 days old when we visited. He was so tiny and adorable with lots of dark hair and a sweet little face. It was fun getting to hold a newborn baby again!
Griffin and Finley were mostly interested in playing with a balloon and the tissue paper from the gifts we brought. They seemed so big and grown up compared to baby Luke. It's crazy how quickly they grow out of that "baby" stage.
It was so good to see Robin and get to be there while Luke was in the room with her. She looked amazing and seemed to be feeling up for anything. She has such amazing strength and endurance, especially considering all the trials that she has had to face in her life. I am proud of her and so thankful that she and Luke are both recovering so well.
After our visit at the hospital in Bend, we went to Mark and Robin's house in Sisters to see Ben, Ryan, and Robin's parents. Ben didn't know that we were coming, so when he opened the door and saw Sadie there he was beyond excited! They immediately started running around and playing with each other. It was so cute! Finn and Griffin had fun playing with toys and having a nice open space to crawl around. Sadie and Ben set up a bowling game in the hallway, which was so fitting since we all have fun memories of bowling with the Bensons (:
And here is Ryan cuddling with his Nana after his nap. So sweet!!

Building Permit

We got a call from the City of Eugene on Tuesday saying that our building permit was ready! Yeah!! Of course we were so excited! We have had to do a lot of waiting this year which we were prepared for, but for some reason the building permit was the hardest thing to wait for. I guess because it's the one thing that has been holding us back from actually building our house. I spent much of this past year feeling nervous and anxious about this project, but now I'm feeling mostly excited and just a little bit nervous (: I wouldn't be me if I didn't worry a little.

Anyway, I am so excited to have a permit! I am also so proud of Josh for all of the effort he put into drawing up the plans, doing the research, going to the city (over and over again), meeting with advisors, and gathering all the information we needed to submit our plans. And all that while dealing with the stress of a new baby and a new job. He's amazing!

Now I guess it's time for the fun to begin! Ronan is so ready for the backhoes and excavators to come to his backyard. He wants to invite all his friends over to watch (:

Saying Goodbye.....

....to our trees

The first step in getting ready to build our house was to have eight fir trees removed from our property. Actually that was the second step. We first had to tear down our shed so that the tree guys could cut the trees down. Thank you to all who helped Josh with that!

So, on September 20th Ronan, Griffin, and I watched as three guys started cutting the giant branches down from our 60' trees. It was amazing. I thought Ronan would be the only one interested in watching, but Griffin and I really got into it too. One guy would climb up the tree to cut limbs down while the other guys would gather the limbs and trim them or put them in the chipper. They worked so fast. In the first day they cut down 4 trees (the biggest ones) and the next day they cut the remaining four trees in half the time. They did a great job. I was sad to see the trees go. I really didn't want to have to cut them down, but I know that it was necessary for the safety and well being of our house. And it was progress!! After almost 2 years of planning, waiting, more planning, and more waiting, we were finally getting started on something! I think Josh was sad that he wasn't able to be home to watch it all. I took some videos for him and lots of pictures too. Here are the before and after pictures:




On Monday, September 24th, a truck came to pick up our logs and deliver them to Roseboro Lumber. Again, this was very cool to watch! Here are some pictures of the log truck in action:

Getting Started

I am new at this blog thing, but I thought I would try it out and see if I can keep up on it. I pretty much just want to have this as a way to keep our friends and family updated on the happenings in our family. We are embarking on a major project (building a house) and I hope to post pictures and journal along the way so that we can look back when we are finished and remember all that went into it. I also love to scrapbook but hardly get the time to these days, so someday when I can make time to scrapbook I can come back to this blog and pull ideas and journals from it. That is my hope anyway!