Architectural Rendition of House

Here is the architectural rendition of the house along with the colors assuming they come through in the picture. This is the southern view - the view that will be seen as you drive up to the house.

Construction Has Begun - September 26, 2007

The big day finally arrived and this is what I arrived home to this evening.

Good progress made today as you can see by the pictures for both the guest house/garage and barn . The pictures are not the best as it's raining this evening. Hopefully, tomorrow will be nice so that they can have a good week with lots of progress. They plan on pouring footings for the garage tomorrow and if all goes well the floor in the barn.

Abby's Confirmation September 23, 2007

Abby was confirmed from Resurrection Lutheran Church (RLC) in Monticello on Sunday, September 23rd, 2007. The total class was made up of 24 confirmands

Sighting in New Garage/Guest House - September 25, 2007

The day is finally here - we received permits last week on Thursday and we were released by Rels Title to move forward on the project yesterday, Monday, September 24th. The team met this morning to sight the new guest house/garage as excavation will begin on Wednesday morning. Plans are to have us moving into the guest house/garage by November 1st.

Holding our permit for the barn. They plan to start the barn renovation on Wednesday along with the guest house/garage.

Here is Shelly and Bryan (Architect) reviewing the blueprints.

Steve (Contractor) meeting with John (Sub-Contractor) to discuss the metal roofs for the buildings.

Steve and Bryan discussing measurements on the drawing to sight the garage. They actually applied mathematical principles today by using the pythagorean theorem.

Shelly holding the tape measure at the house as a benchmark to establish the length between the existing house and corner of new guest house.





Shelly, Bryan and Steve getting measurements for the guest house/garage. Finally, Shelly standing in the center of the new guest house/garage location.....looks pretty small and we are going to live there for 5 1/2 - 6 months..........

Let the fun begin......stay tuned as we'll post updates of the progress on a daily basis.

Family Pictures - Tigger and Roo

Tigger and Roo are technically Abby's cats. They are brothers which we got from friends while living in Wisconsin Rapids, WI.

Here are some pictures of Tigger.

Unfortunately, at the time of the post, I'm unable to find pictures of Roo.

Family Pictures - Barney and Lola

This blog post features the family dogs, Barney and Lola.

Barney received a playmate in November of last year from Kalligher Bulldogs in Shakopee, MN. If you get a chance, you'll have to go and visit their website and see their dogs and puppies (http://www.kalligherbulldogs.com/).

Lola has been a great addition to the family and she has quite the personality. Barney and her play together for the most part very well. Barney turned 4 years old this year and Lola just had her 1st birthday on September 1st.

She's definitely grown from the day we got her (left) and her 1st birthday on September 1st (right)

We often joke that these are our kids and we are getting ready to eventually being empty nesters.

Enjoy the pictures....the next blog will feature the cats, Roo and Tigger, hopefully we can find some pictures of them in the past as they haven't been as friendly now that there are 2 dogs ruling the house.

Family Pictures - Abby

Abby mentioned last night why do all the pictures include Aaron. So, today I'm including pictures of Abby who turned 16 in August and will be a Sophmore at Monticello High School. The highlight or milestone for Abby this past year was receiving her drivers license.

Abby working on a sewing project -backpack with our English Bulldog, Lola, who turned 1 year old on September 1st.

Abby and Jessica Hayda at the Snow Dance in February 2007.

Additional pictures of Our Property

Below are some additional pictures of our property:

This is the new garden created during the time that our Swedish relatives were here in June. Shelly and I worked throughout the rest of summer transplanting from the garden by the current house to various locations around our property.

This landscaping area is still under construction - the shrubs (spireas, etc.) have been transplanted. But the hard work remains as we now need to remove the grass and install edging along with bark. I think I'll wait until there is some cooler weather.......

The picture below is another area along the driveway in which we moved trees (maple, spruce and lilac trees) along with shrubs.

Home

Attached are pictures of our home in Monticello, MN as it was in the summer of 2006 and is currently in September 2007. We originally purchased this property in 2004 with intentions of building our dream home/retirement home. However, as most people know we took the leap of faith and moved back home to Minnesota in June 2005. Our home is located on 3.5 acres about 5 miles west of Monticello along the Mississippi River.

After almost 3 years, we will begin to realize our dream staring in mid -September fter a long strategic process of working with an architect since January 2007 (Bryan Anderson of SALA Architects; http://www.salaarc.com/). The start of the project will begin with the building of the garage - which we are titling a guest house in order to have some of the features required as we will live in this during the demolition and construction of our new home. At the same time as the garage, our contractor (Showcase Renovations, Inc.; http://www.showcaserenovation.com/) will be working on renovation of the barn. Our intentions are to be out of the house in mid-to-late October.

These are pictures in 2006.

Here are current pictures of our property as it is pre-construction in September 2007.

This picture depicts all the transplanting and moving of plants, rock, etc. in preparation for the tear down.

This is two of the transplant locations. Picture below of the garden was a joint effort with our relatives from Sweden during the family reunion in June.

This is the location for the garage.

This is a picture of the raven between our house and barn that was discovered by our relatives from Sweden in June as they worked daily to clear this area and provide a beautiful pathway from the house to the field where our fire pit is.

Stay tuned to our blog site as we post progress of the project.

Aaron Off to College

Aaron starts college at Gustavus Adolphus in St. Peter, MN. Here is Aaron and Shelly in front of Aaron's dormitory.

A major milestone has been achieved as Aaron headed off to college on Friday, August 31st. Aaron is attending Gustavus Adolophus College (GAC) in St. Peter, MN and intends on majoring in International Business Management; http://www.gustavus.edu/

Here are some pictures of Aaron's dorm room on movin day.