Breaking Ground!

We had a wonderful ground breaking ceremony in June.  
Family, friends (both old and new), associates and friends from a number of organizations, our builder, Kerry Hage, and architect, Marc Sloot and a number of other contractors were all in attendance.

A number of our new neighbors were there to hear a bit about what would be happening at this formerly open area.  
Marc and Kerry spoke a bit about the house project, we all shared cookies and had a great time learning about our new neighborhood, answering questions about our future house and just generally enjoying the evening before it rained (the rain held off almost to the minute of the end of the ceremony).

We are so appreciative of everyone that came that evening, it was a wonderful way to start!
We also want to thank Morgan Mosiman for the wonderful photography.

The next step, the actual ground breaking with the big toys, took a bit of time to get everyone lined up (excavators, concrete guys, landscapers, etc).

In late July, we broke ground, with the big toys, for our new home!

A few trees had to come down, which saddened me.  The beautiful apple tree in the center of the lot was diseased, and needed to come down anyways, so that didn't sting quite so much.

In a storm (which happened to be one of the delays we ran into) half of the apple tree actually came down early, all on its own.
Luckily, one of the oldest, grandest trees, we should be able to save.  It is an Ash tree, and we have already contacted an arborist to help us stave off any Emerald Ash Borer infestation.  At this point, it seems to be free of EAB, which is fairly common in the area.

None of the trees were appropriate for the local wood reclamation companies.  They were either rotten, or not straight enough.  The excavator will be using the debris for fuel back at their headquarters.

Concrete forms should be here later this week for the foundation and basement walls.