We Did it!

So our big project of last year was building our garage. This project kinda fell in our lap... literally. Last February 2, at 12:05 our carport collapsed due to about 18" of really heavy snow on it. This is what it looked like.

It was a little traumatic. Our car looked like this.

So we cleaned up and called the people we need to to contact about that and started to plan.  Luckaly Daddy's cousin Jared is an architect and helped us out with the plans a ton! That was so helpful since we decided that we would do a garage instead of rebuilding a carport.
The first part of May we had our cement work done. They were really fast! I think it was like a week and a half and we were done. It was fun to watch them take it out and pour it in. So now we had a new cement pad and foundation walls. Yippee!

Then we were busy with end of school, work Lagoon day and our family vacation to Indiana to see Aaron, Elisabeth, and Kisty. We had such a good time but knew that when we got back we needed to get started on the framing.

July 18th we received our first load of building supplies. We loved watching the truck dump all of them in the driveway.

We started framing July 20th. It was 102 or 104 that day. We had lots of help from neighbors and ward members. Our Home teacher, John is a builder and heating guy and he spent many many hours with us building as well as Rich our friend and neighbor. We really couldn't have done it with out them and all the other help that we received along the way! By the end of the day this is what we had.

Trusses and sheathing came next and by August 31 this is what  it looked like.

September came and we continued to finish up the roof, shingle and put the window in the attic.
We sheet rocked, mudded, taped, put vapor barrier on the outside and put up the siding.

We finished the siding the night before it turned bitterly cold. It was such a blessing! Now our house looks like this

One thing we've learned this past year is that when life goes wrong and you are handed a yucky situation, there are always blessings. They may be big or small but there are always blessings if we look for them. I'm so grateful for this challenge we've had this past year and thing skills and lessons that we've been able to learn. I hope you see the tender mercies that the Lord gives to you everyday.