Another benefit of this renovation...

... is that we won't be parking on dirt anymore and I won't have 1000s of red ants crawling around in my mommyvan!

Sunday afternoon we went for a swim. Belle and I biked while Keith drove over later on with Corgan. When he got there he mentioned that there were lots of ants in my car. With all of the food all over the place and my van being the messiest it had ever been, I wasn't too surprise. I was surprise though when I saw just how many ants there were! There seriously were thousands of those little buggers! I think they were even forming a nest in the door jamb of the passenger door!

I don't know how, but nobody got bitten. The pool wasn't far away (we sneak into the pool at Ben's old apartments) so it was a short drive. When the kids went down for a nap, I got out there and sprayed the heck out of my car and took out every single thing that wasn't attached. I then vacuumed the heck out of it and re-sprayed just in case. Yuck! So now my car is cleaned spotless (on the inside anyway), and the ants are gone!

Anyway, the addition is moving along great. Things are a little behind on the garage because the screws for the remaining panelling just came in TODAY (they were supposed to be here weeks ago and the vendor had even signed them off as having been delivered). The main roof is complete, the windows are installed, the garage doors are waiting to be installed, the plumbing just needs fixtures, and the electrical is waiting for fixtures too. Once the paneling goes up, everything else should happen fast... hopefully by the end of this week. Fortunately, even with this setback, they have had the addition to work on so we have lots of progress there. On the addition, the outside framing should be completed today (the interior walls still need to be done), the concrete is complete, and the plumbing is plumbed. They had to remove the existing balcony off of our bedroom and were planning to build a new one, but I opted to just put windows in there instead and remove the french doors. The reason is because that is the only opening to the outdoors in that room so in order to get any circulation in there you have to have the doors open with no screen to keep bugs from flying in or kids from flying out. Now for some pictures...

This is the framing as of the end of last week. Now the trusses are up too and the balcony has been removed.

I had them let us know when the concrete was at a good curing-point for handprints. I had planned to have the whole family do hand prints, but Keith had a doctors appointment right at handprint-time, so I decided to just do the kids'. That didn't work out either since everytime I tried to put Corgan's hands in, he'd grab a handful of concrete. That doesn't make for a great handprint. :) So, instead I did Belle's hands and feet and Corgan's feet. The concrete guys framed it all up for us too. The prints are in the concrete at one end of the porch so you will still see it once everything is complete. The next owner may not care for it, but that's their problem. :)
The prints say "05.14.08" at the top and "ACD" over Belle's footprints, "CAD" over Corgan's footprints, and "Belle's Hands" over Belle's handprints.

Here are our new windows. They open from the top or bottom, and you can lock it so that you can only open the bottom ones up to a certain point. The screen is only on half of the windows so it's actually much brighter in here during the day. They are hurricane safe, so we don't need shutters. And they can fold inward to easily clean the outside of the window from inside the house. So far they get 6 thumbs up! It was nice to have the full view out the windows with the casement windows, but I'll take safety and usability over "nice" anyday!

Tonight I'm off to pickup the new workshop sink (complete with retractable faucet), the outdoor security lights, the outdoor sconces for the porches, ceiling fans for the porches, and whatever else I can decide on for sure tonight. It sure is fun to spend someone else's money... well... someone else's money that you paid to them... so I guess it's our own money, but it's money that has already been spent so I better spend it anyway. :)