We have walls!

The sun came out yesterday and in a marathon 12 hour session, Tony and I were able to get 3 walls of the house up. The first one was a dilly, very heavy, but we managed to get it erect and get the other 2 up shortly after that. Mike drove down from Fairbanks last night and as I write this, he and Tony are working on the 4th wall and (hopefully) starting on the roof. I'm hoping they can get to this because I have my doubts about my personal ability to lug heavy stuff up a ladder and get it into to position to form the roof. We may have to ask the boys that did the concrete work with us to come back if Tony and Mike can't get that accomplished today and tomorrow. They are able to do it (I've seen it before with the garage) but we're still having sporadic rain showers and that makes it tough. Here are some pics of the first 3 walls:

Tony constructing the first wall before it was erected



Getting that first wall up was a real job. The thing weighed A LOT and I could barely lift one end of it more than a foot. We had to stand it up, inches at a time, bracing and propping it until we could get it set into place. Whew!



Here is a first look at 3 sides of the house constructed. The front door is on the wall to the far right and faces north. The back of the house faces south and will get the majority of the sun, so it has the most windows.



The south facing wall - see all the windows?



The south facing view from our two 6 foot wide living room windows - sweet!



This is the view out my south facing kitchen window - it's 5 feet wide. I was standing there last night, looking out, doing dishes in my head :)



Another nice little surprise was that my friend Jill stopped by last night on her way from Fairbanks to Dot Lake. It was really great seeing her and catching up a bit on life, kids, and Alaska stuff. I wish we were closer, but we're certainly a lot closer than we were when I lived in Wasilla!