Trip to St. Louis - Part 1

For Memorial Day weekend, we headed to St. Louis to visit the Ferner side of the family. Ian got to take his first plane ride! On the first day, we went to Grant's Farm to see the animals.





Ian also had his first celebrity encounter - he got to pet Miss Budweiser, the little donkey in the Super Bowl commercials.



On the second day, we went to Aunt Janet and Uncle Tim's house to swim in the pool.



We'll be back in the pool again tomorrow for the Memorial Day family picnic.

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Waiting for the train at Grant's Farm.

Before and After - Plus Furniture

The deck/porch is FINALLY done! 44 days later, and we're very pleased with the results.

Before:


After:


We started placing the furniture last night, and I'm not convinced this is where everything will stay, but it looks nice for now. Still need to do a lot of accessorizing.

Where's Dada?

Ian spends a lot of time looking around for his dada.

10 Months Old

Ian is 10 months old today! Getting his birthday picture is now a two-parent job since he's so mobile.



At 10 months, Ian has 4 teeth (two on the bottom and two on the top). He eats 3 solid food meals a day, and drinks 4 6 oz bottles of formula. Tomorrow he will start eating "school lunch" since his teacher Ms. Stephanie says he's been very hungry during the day and needs more food. He's not very interested in table food just yet, but it will be interesting to see how he does with some more interesting selections - today the kids ate pasta primavera.

Most of Ian's clothes are size 6-12 months now, and his Carter's 9 month clothes are getting pretty snug.

Next week Ian will take his first plane ride to visit his Grandma and Grandpa and aunts and uncles and cousins in St. Louis. He is very excited to snuggle with Grandma and swim in Aunt Janet's pool!

As for mobility, Ian is all over the place. He's a very fast crawler, and will cruise around on the furniture and climb onto anything that's low enough. His teachers say he is even learning to jump. He is learning to walk slowly with his push toys, but hasn't been brave enough to stand or take any steps on his own just yet.

Days 15-18: Finishing

We're getting close to the end now - finally! The crew has been working hard on the finishing details this week, and the final inspection happened Friday. Unfortunately we didn't pass, but it turns out the inspector had a different version of the plans than what was agreed to by the engineer who issued the permit. So, it failed on a technicality and the issue should be resolved without another inspection required.

There is still a lot of finishing work to be done, but they promised me repeatedly that they would be finished, cleaned up, and cleared out by the end of the day Saturday (May 15th) but I'll believe that when I see it. I'm meeting with the electrician today to install the lighting and fans so that's the last big hurdle, and we're hoping to have the dogs back Sunday.

Walking

Ian is very busy learning to walk these days. He spends most of his playtime cruising around the furniture, and is getting very good with his push toys. He'll be mowing the lawn in no time!

Day 14 - Wrapping and Skylights

Today they started the finishing work by wrapping part of the frame in white Trex material. They also cut the holes for the skylights.





No, that's not leftover snow, just a big pile of white sawdust. They've promised us final inspection by Friday and the electrician on Saturday, but with rain in the forecast I'm skeptical.

Days 12 and 13 - Roofing

It took two days to cover the rafters with two layers of materials. The first layer, which you can see on the underside of the roof, is a pine beadboard (similar to wainscot). It looks really pretty, I am very pleased with it. The second layer is a plywood covering which will hold the shingles (eventually).

Day 11 - Rafters Complete

Both sides of the roof now have rafters. They had to cut a sizeable chunk of the soffit in the corner of the existing roof to fit the support beam - we are unsure of the plan to fix the hole but hope they do something soon since it looks pretty bad.

Finger Foods

We are trying to get Ian to feed himself table food. There are a few things he likes, but overall he's not too interested. When this picture was taken, I fixed him a delicious dinner of banana and watermelon and added the obligatory puffs (his favorite). He picked out all of the puffs then cried until I spoon fed him something pureed.

Ian loves to be outside. Here he is testing out the new decking. It's crawl-approved!

Day 10 - Starting the Rafters

The crew worked a Saturday to start putting up the roof rafters. Only half of the roof has rafters at this point (the side of the roof parallel to the house does not yet have any). You can also see in this photo the giant 30' load-bearing logs (LBLs) which were doubled up and run from the interior corner to the exterior corner. The post against the house between the window and door is holding it up. The top of the roof structure is about 5' higher than the base of the house overhang, which gives the roof nice height but can't be seen in the picture.

Ian was outside bouncing while I cleaned the mud off the dog door, hence the jumperoo among the ladders.




I would also like to point out that it's been 25 calendar days since the holes were dug, and only 10 of those saw any progress. I'm not sure we can count the material delivery days or inspection days since no work was actually completed, so really the crew has only been here 7 days. It would have been nice if the builder had clarified that his 2-3 week estimate meant 2-3 weeks worth of actual work days spanning 6 or 7 actual weeks.