Last Saturday in July !!

We can't believe that July is almost gone! There are lots of people up here these days and Traverse City and surrounding areas have no vacancies for any more visitors. We have been on a major roll with the weather finally and have had very little rain and warm temperatures. T.C. had it's Film Festival and now there are new events coming weekly. This is the best of the north at this time of year.

There has been ongoing progress on the house, and I am posting some new pictures. Tomorrow we are leaving for Wilderness State Park west of Mackinaw City for a few days. We plan on being back to Wheeler Road on Friday.

Hope all is well with everyone. We miss you all!

The front porch is almost done.

The north side of the house showing the doorwall off the family room.

The garage on the south end with our bedroom above.

The back of the house.

Tuesday in the Sun!

Another beautiful northern Michigan day. Clear blue skies, temps around 70 and no humidity! I could take this all summer long! I hope everyone is doing great out there. Nancy and I are remodeling her mom and dad's second bathroom since they liked the first so well! It gives us practice for when we will be doing the bathrooms in our new house.

Here is an update in pictures...

The garage end roof has been giving the carpenters a workout with all of the gables and different pitches.

The family room windows and fireplace are starting to take shape.

Two thirds of the house is shingled now so the rains have stopped.

Things will look different again when the windows and doors go in.

Here is a critter pic. I was so excited to see a green snake that I had to take pictures.

This is some sort of green and chartreuse tree snake. I have never seen anything like it in the wild, especially in Michigan. Anyone know what it is??

It is a smooth green snake, not to be confused with a smooth snake in the grass. Here is what the DNR knows about it...http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,1607,7-153-10370_12145_12201-61212--,00.html

Greetings to All

We have been watching the progress on the house this past week and have had some fun at Torch Lake. We met up with Bev and Gary on Tuesday at Torch Lake and toured the lake on our boat and did some swimming. We spent the whole day out there and ate lunch and had a good time.
On Thursday Sue Seefried came out to visit and Tom and Evey came up for the weekend. We showed Sue around Glen Arbor and then we all went to the beach on Lake Michigan for a couple of hours. The weather has been pretty hot this week with two days above ninety. We only had one hot night where it stayed above eighty and a new record was set for the highest low temperature.

The construction crew has the main part of the house shingled and they have most of the garage end roofed but not yet shingled. Things are starting to take shape and the windows are going to get delivered this week. We are expecting that the plumber and heating contractor will begin to work on the house within the next two weeks.

Monday, July 18 already!

We spent the weekend at Nancy's friend Bev's house on Houghton Lake. It was nice relaxing in the water to cool off with the temperatures pushing 90. We have been meeting at her place for a weekend every summer for the past three years since they bought the house as a cottage. They moved in permanently after Bev retired from the Bus garage at Chippewa Valley Schools. She drove a school bus there for thirty years. Karen and Will also meet there with us for the weekend and we talk about families, plans, what's going on and what we've been up to. The three women graduated from high school together and I graduated with Bev's husband Gary.

Today the work crew arrived early and started working on the roof again. There is still some sheathing to be done and shingles, but this week it will probably be too hot to get all of the shingling done. Last night we had a terrific storm with continuous lightening and thunder and rain for about two hours. There was a boat that capsized in Lake Michigan that was participating in the Port Huron to Mackinac sail boat race. It looks like six people were rescued and two were lost. There is more rain forecast for today.

Blogging in from Leland

We had dinner at Goodfallows today and I got a chance to get on the web. We spent last night at Traditions B and B and learned a lot about the owners and their business. They started out the same way as us, moving from Indiana and spending the winter in their trailer on their property while the house was being built. They moved in in April of 2003 and opened for business in July of that year. They built the house to be a B&B and they seem to have done well with it. The rooms are spacious and well appointed and they look like they know what they are doing. After eight years in business they still seem to enjoy the lifestyle of innkeepers. It was a good experience.

Thursday, July 14

We are back in Northern Michigan, land of the internet challenged masses! Since we left Sterling Heights we have not had much success with internet access. Everything works fine south of I-69, but fails miserably once we leave Flint.

Anyway, we are starting to see a lot of progress on construction this past few weeks. This week shingles are being put on the roof. There are still alot to go but the roof and shingles are going up pretty quickly.

Tonight we are staying at Traditions B&B just outside of the town of Lake Leelanau. We came here undercover and are acting as moles for Maple Ridge B&B to see what the owners of Traditions offer their customers and to see what the facility is like. So far everything looks really nice and the rooms are spacious and comfortable. The grounds have been landscaped to be inviting and interesting. We are taking notes as we go!

Here are the latest pics from Wheeler Road...

 Scaffolding across the back of the house for the workers to work on the roof.

Front porch was poured and column bases built.

Overhangs and sheating going up.

Back in Southern Michigan

We brought Ben and Kate home today and are spending the night at Tom's. We had a great few days with the kids at Higgins Lake and last night at the sand dunes and Glen Arbor. When we got back to Wheeler Road on Friday we were overwhelmed with the progress that was made and at how big the house is getting. Most of the trusses are in place and the garage has been added. All of the second floor walls are in place except a couple exterior walls above the garage and the front of the family room. The front porch has been poured and an apron was added to the front of the garage. We are really looking forward to see the outside get done.
Here are some pictures from fourth of July and from the past few days....

Celebrating July birthdays on July 4th. (Sean was throwing a Frisbee in the air, but looks like he is just high on life!)

We were at the Oxford Drive beach waiting for it to get dark enough for fireworks to begin.

Bill and Barb Wright met us at Higgins Lake to camp with the kids for three days. Here we were having a fishing derby.

Ben and Kate on top of the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes.

 When we got back to Wheeler Road on Friday the house looked like this!

 The garage walls went up and all of the trusses. This is the back of the house.

 Looking across three bedrooms on the second floor. It looks like a lot of lumber is going into this project!

 Stairway to the second floor.

The front of the house. The front family room wall still needs to be added along with the fireplace and chimney.

Friday, July 8

We had three beautiful days at North Higgins State Park, but today we are moving back to Wheeler Road to check on the progress on construction and to get ready to head to southern Michigan to bring the kids home. We've had a great time with the Wrights and the kids and all of the little ones have had a good time. They have slept in every morning way past their normal wake up time. It must be all the fresh air and exercise.

We are hoping to see the house taking shape since trusses were delivered early in the week and should be on the house now. Pictures will be posted when I get a better Internet signal.

I hope everyone is enjoying the summer.

Kate and Natalie hamming it up.

The annual Fourth of July beach party at Good Harbor on Lake Michigan.

Hannah at Lake Leelanau

An early photo of home construction. Before we left this week all of the second floor walls were up.

Wednesday at Higgins

The kids slept through the night and didn't get up til after seven! We were expecting them to wake much earlier so I guess we really got lucky to sleep in. We had a little rain last night but this morning it is bright and sunny. We are going to go exploring the park today.

The parking lot at Camp Oxford Drive.

Happy campers around the campfire.

The Blog is Back!

After almost three weeks of accessibility issues I finally got re-connected to my wireless device! We've got a lot of catching up to do!

This past weekend we had our annual fourth of July get-together in Leland. The weather smiled on all of the northern Michigan visitors and we had four days of perfect weather with hardly a cloud in the sky and daytime temperatures around eighty. All the kids had their tents set up in Grandma and Grandpa Goodfallow's back yard. We had a couple of beach days, camp fires each evening and fireworks in Leland on Sunday. Everyone got to see the progress we are making on Wheeler Road and were impressed at how much has gotten done to date. This morning the trusses for the house were being delivered and the next time we see the house the roof should be going on.

Nancy and I are at North Higgins State park tonight camping with the Wrights. We have Ben and Kate with us and they have Hannah and Natalie. We are here for three nights and then are coming south for Trevor's first birthday party this weekend.

Hope everyone had a great weekend and that everyone is well.