Whew – what a weekend!

Even before the weekend hit, this was how Hadden looked. This was in the middle of the day and definitely not a normal posture for him. I thought it was cute that he still held onto his baseball bat.

He had not been feeling well since Monday – fever on and off and just not himself. I actually suspected swine flu, but he wasn’t having any respiratory issues, so I was just watching him closely and treating his fever. By Friday there wasn’t any improvement so I took him to the doctor on Saturday morning. After 3 hours and some tests, we found out he has mono and we just have to let it run its course. Poor little guy is pretty much miserable without Advil and Tylenol. Please pray for him to recover quickly – thank you.

John front loaded his week at work and Friday we spent the day forming up for more concrete. We made retaining walls at the sides of the house so that we could backfill and prepare for the heating and air units. The formwork brought back a LOT of memories of about a year and a little ago.

Before and after (I just realized that these are of the different sides).

We also poured the front porch area – that was a huge step in the right direction. No more moat!!! John worked very hard – even into the dark to get it finished.

Before (above) … John working, John working … after

Heart rock! Savannah and Aunt Teresa like them. This one is WAY to big to send, Teresa.

The fun continued on Saturday. After spending the morning at the doctor’s office with Hadden, John told me that the track skid steer was stuck. Boy, he was not kidding! This picture doesn’t really show the extent of it, but after all of the rain from Ida, there were some muddy areas. John was trying to condense and clean up the burn pile … which is really funny considering what we had to do to get the tractor out!

Here we are actually close to getting this bad boy out of the mud! It’s kind of hard to tell by the picture, but that is a fairly steep uphill slope to the right of the picture – which is where he needed to go. We pulled log after log OFF of the burn pile to use to try to keep from sinking in the mud. At one point, we were down about twice as far and stuck on a rock. At one point, the mud was up over the track completely. So at this point, we have come a LONG way.

Oh, and the thing that really helped us? MUD – but this kind was the brick and mud kind – leftover mounds from when the brick masons were here. They were sturdy enough to withstand the beating and weight and had enough grip for the track to grab.

It was frustrating, tiring, slopping, messy and somehow crazy fun and funny at the same time. We were EXTREMELY thankful to get it out just before sunset.

After – on the logpile.

Whew! Ready to get to work.

And … this was the sunset. Absolutely gorgeous!

Painting has had to be postponed, but I can report that the basement is primed and ready for color! Yippee! Ceilings first, though – uggh, I don’t like ceilings.

More news to share tomorrow … we have progress on other areas of the house …