THIS IS TOO COOL FOR SCHOOL!

Colton Hill has joined 250 other student basketball players from around the country for four days of Basketball fundamentals with the University of Notre Dame Men's Basketball team and staff.

He will be staying in the dorms on the campus and playing basketball in the main stadium and gym complex, the Jacc Center.

Everyone is excited to go and see him play at Notre Dame in Indiana

Yellow House rear addition

This shot shows a part of the rear addition. To the right, the white pipe is the venting for the guest bathroom. Where Bizzy is standing is the utility room, where the laundry and water facilities (water heater, pump and treatment system) are located.

The center part of the addition will be the new kitchen. Grandpa decided it was easier to run the new plumping under the new addition rather than try to plumb under the old part of the house.

Where the ladder is standing will be the master bath off and the door beyond the ladder goes to the master bedroom. Most of the bathroom walls have been insulated, much to the teasing off lots of people. We all point to mom and dad's house in Bullhead City and tell them we'd rather insulate than have guests hear when someone flushes!

Can you send up a Diet Coke?

Charles pokes his head through the attic entry and smiles at Bizzy as she snaps this shot. Charles was up in the attic helping Grandpa string electrical wire from one side of the house to the other in order to run power to the new additions. Most of the old electrical circuitry was bypassed and shut down, with the exception of two good circuits running the three main rooms in the center of the house. Everything else in Yellow House will be virtually new electrical wire.

We don't know where to start!

Uncle Rod looks over the electrical wiring that Grandpa, Charles and Bizzy pulled during the previous week. Uncle Rod said he was impressed with the work thus far and promptly got out of Yellow House before being recruited to inspect the attic.

Charles was thankful that Uncle Rod showed up, because he so needed a Diet Coke break (don't worry, there is more bottled water than Diet Cokes in Charles' cooler!).

This part of the new addition belonged to the old front porch. Behind Charles, on the other side of the stud wall, is the front entry way and beyond it, the living room. The doorway in the extreme rear goes into the master bedroom.

The blue green walls behind Uncle Rod belong to the old kitchen, which now has become the dining room. Behind the wall to the left is another existing bedroom, above which is the attic entry in the peak. Where these two are standing will become a third bedroom/den/office.

Yellow House NOW (sort of!)

With the exception of the front windows, which have since been replaced, this is about what Yellow House looks like now. We're waiting on siding to arrive and we're ready to drywall inside (see above posts).

Yellow House sits on an acre-and-a-half with a one-car garage in the back. The idea, when Dad bought this last November, was to build a pole barn on the back of the lot so that we'd have a place to store the boats. Yellow House sits approx. 4 miles from Bass Lake.

While we were working on the house during June, we discovered a mommy deer and two baby fawns feeding from the droppings beneath our one apple tree at the rear of the lot. Every night at dusk they come out and we watch them feed.

Yellow House THEN (February 2008)

This is the same side view as the post below. The attic opening is in the peak. We had the front porch sheared off and built a new addition with entryway. The far bay window (extreme right rear) is the front living room. Our goal was to try our hardest to keep the rounded window bays.

Yellow House NOW

As you can see, the two new additions nearly dwarf the old part of the house (the center part with the peak). The opening in the peak goes into the attic, which Charles had to climb into to help Grandpa run new electric wires to both sides of the house (see above).

Yellow House THEN (February 2008)

While we waited for the weather to warm up, we started making plans, the first of which was to shear off the back addition (the one with the makeshift chimney and back door) and the front porch and add two new additions. In the post following, you can barely see the rear peak as the new roof covers the old one. The wood shingle siding has been totally removed all the way around. Where you see Becca walking in the picture below, she is to the right of the old grill, but 10 feet away from where the old building was.

Yellow House NOW

This is the back side of Yellow house with the new addition. We'll be receiving siding this week with the hopes of being covered next week. That's Becca exploring.

Our newest addition!

We recently added to our little family. This is D.D. (prounounced "DeeDee"). When we first began looking for a dog last fall, we found an Amish dog breeder near one of our favorite Amish towns, Nappannee. He breeds Pomeranians, and we fell in love with his adult dogs - one male and three female - all of which reminded us of our beloved Sandy and Tigger.

When Mom and Dad picked up Abe (pronounced "Aay-Bee") they purposefully gave him a name that Becca could say, at the same time learn the alphabet. A unique idea, and we wanted to follow suit. Becca decided that our new puppy should be named either C.C. ("CeeCee") or D.D. (see above). She liked D.D. better, so we now have D.D., or her appropriately named AKC moniker, "Biz's Darling Dog".

She's smart as a whip. At 13 weeks, she's nearly potty trained, can do several tricks and loves Abe to the point that when they go out together, she's hanging off his ears!

That's my Peanut Butter Sandwich!

Becca and Grandpa enjoy a quiet moment on the deck at the Bass Lake cottage over the Fourth of July weekend. Grandpa is feeling much better after two week-long stints in the hospital in May and June.

In May, Grandpa Claude felt like there was something wrong with his heart, but the doctors couldn't find anything wrong, adjusted his medication and sent him home. He started feeling better, but was having some pains in his lower torso and knew, just knew that he was sick. He went back into the hospital two weeks later and doctors found an intestinal infection - Diverticulitis - and treated him. After five days, he was sent home to recuperate, which took another three weeks.

He's feeling much better now and is back working in Yellow House. More to come!

Update coming soon!

I know it's been awhile, but I will have an update posted this week! For those of you who check periodically, we thank you for reading. I have pictures of Yellow House, fun at the lake, and summer school to come.

Thanks again and check back soon!