This Week

It's been three weeks since Mark was in Denver.  After Delaney's graduation, he flew back up to North Dakota for the week and then flew back to Odessa for the Memorial Day weekend.  On Monday he drove back to Denver and stopped by the building site on his way back in.  Boy was he surprised at how much they had completed while he was gone!

The house has been framed, wrapped, decked and they have the driveway and front steps finished.  However, the basement has about 6 inches of water in it because of all of the storms they have been having.  We will have a sump pump in the basement but it obviously hasn't been installed just yet. It looks like they will put the cleats on the roof and will be putting the tiles on the roof soon.  Mark plans on going out there again on Sunday so I'll be posting some more pictures soon.

Speaking of storms, we had some really nice rain last week.  Of course anytime that there is rain in the desert the plants respond gloriously.  Here's a picture I took of some of the wildflowers when I was out walking this week.

House Update

Mark has been out of Denver for the past three weeks so we haven't really been able to keep up with the progress on the house other than thru Edmund (our builder's representative). Edmund was kind enough to send me these pictures last week.  Mark will be back in Denver on Tuesday so he will be able to go out to the site and get a better idea of how things are progressing. 

This is a picture of the back of the house.  As you can see- these homes are basically garden homes with very little yard (and space between the houses).  The house we are building is actually bigger than the one we have in Odessa but the yard (and the yard work that goes with it) is considerably smaller.  The green space behind our home is taken care by the HOA so we can enjoy the view without having to maintain it.


Here's the front of the house.

And finally here is the view that we have from the patio on the back of our house.  You can see the beautiful mountains in the background.  They actually look much closer in real life than they do in the picture.  

I can definitely see myself sitting in my backyard enjoying the view and the cooler summer days.  However, those of you who have been watching the weather in Denver this past week know that there has been some strange stuff going on. 

This is a picture of the hailstorm they had on Wednesday!  Holy smokes... what are we getting into?!?

She Did IT!

Meet the newest University of Texas graduate!  I still can't believe that it has been four years since she took off to Austin. But then again it seems like she has been there forever.  

We had such a good graduation weekend.  Several of our family and friends came in to celebrate with us- namely The Roberts family: Zach, Tammy, Mike, and  Allison (who came all the way from DC) The Oklahoma contingency: Hillary McGuire, Jake and Mal Stewart, and Molly McGuire, our Odessa friends Katherine and Everett Day, Mindy Ashby and Lukas Weeden, Christy who is one of Delaney's employers, Delaney's roommate Scout and my parents Mimi and Poppa.  Thanks to everyone who made it to Austin to help us celebrate.  It meant so much to us to have you there to honor Delaney and all that she has accomplished.

 Delaney in front of the Architecture Building where she spent 90% of her time

Mark, Delaney, Henley and Sandie

Henley supporting the Texans and Delaney throwing the Horns

 Mark, Zach, Delaney, Sandie, Henley, Mimi and Poppa

Delaney decorated her mortar board for graduation

Celebrating on 6th street

Here's to you Texas!

Moving Right Along

There has been quite a bit of progress on the house this last week but it's not that evident from the picture.  When Mark checked on the house last Saturday they they had put the plumbing in and poured the basement floor.  He didn't take a picture of it because there really weren't many changes that you could actually see.  (He has been warned that I still want pictures even if there's not much to see-ha!)


On Sunday he went back out to Parker to check on something and was very surprised that sometime on late Saturday afternoon or early Sunday they had put the steel girders in! 

Mark was in North Dakota last week, will be in Odessa this week with us, and will be back in North Dakota the following week so he won't be able to check on the progress for 3 weeks.  I'm sure that by the next time he sends me pictures we will have a structure that actually looks like a home.