Kayaking on the Guadalupe -- Pictorial Version

More Foundation News

We are getting to the point in our foundation that we actually believe it will be level at the end! We had a surveyor come out to place the forms for the house foundation on the survey that was submitted to our lender. Once that is received, we'll be able to get the money for the work that's been completed.

Kayaking on the Guadalupe

My nephew and niece-in-law came up yesterday and the four of us enjoyed a relaxing kayak trip on the beautiful Guadalupe river, and then a fun afternoon in Gruene.

This was the maiden voyage of Carl's and my kayaks; we bought them a couple of years ago when we moved down here -- the first summer the river was so low it was practically dry and last summer the river was closed to kayaking because it was so high! Feast or famine for the water sport industry around here. . .

Pictures will be on another post as soon as I get them from Bekki. . .

4th of July -- Round Top Style

This post is a week late but I wanted to learn how to include a slide show of the Independence Day parade we attended.

Our cousins invited us to come to Round Top for the 4th of July Celebration; we enjoy their company and had nothing else to do, so we went. Round Top has a population of 81 so we expected a quaint, small-town celebration with a parade of 10 or so vehicles and a few booths set up around town. Imagine our surprise when we couldn't find a parking place when we got to town! The celebration started with entertainment by the Round Top Brass Band -- a group of 10 - 12 musicians. This was followed by speeches by the mayor and county judge, an original essay presented by the Class of '08's valedictorian, music sung by a local, VERY talented musician, and a shot from a real canon. The parade had over 100 entries and we enjoyed it very much. We learned that Round Top has the oldest, continuous Independence Day celebration west of the Mississippi -- this was the 158th celebration!

Below is a selection of the wonderful entries of floats, longhorns, vintage and antique cars, old fire engines, etc.

Enjoy!

Round Top 4th of July Parade

Some More Foundation Progress

We went up to the land today (July 9th) to see what has been done in the last two days. Not as much progress as we had hope, but at least a lot of new fill had been delivered.



We hope that we can get the rough-in plumbing and steel laid within a couple of weeks, so we can begin the concrete pour. Ohhhhhh! We have waited so long!

But time marches on...

Foundation Update

Work continues with the tall, back wall of forms being more strongly reinforced and braced. They still have more bracing to do, as seven and a half feet of concrete is pretty heavy.

This week hordes of workers came in to begin laying the inside portion of the wall forms. This is done by placing thick-mil plastic down, packing it with fill and then rolling it back away from the outside form so that it acts as a "brick" that is held in place by more fill. This way the inside part of the form becomes a part of the fill and does not have to be removed.
We are amazed at the amount of fill that has been removed from our driveway, and yet we still have such a long way to go to complete the forms.