The 4th Weekend in a Row

Steve arrived at the Moye Compound early on Friday to begin staining the cabins. He was able to spray the exterior of both bldgs. before the kids and I arrived for dinner. The fumes from the stain were nearly unbearable for him, even with a respirator! He was able to get most of the first bldg. interior stained, but the rest will have to wait until he purchases goggles and a "tyvek moonsuit."

I went for a couple of mt. bike rides, and we hiked along the river, inspecting other cabins in our area. Rex has learned to "skip" stones across the water, which is very exciting.

I am on-call next weekend, so we won't be back until the weekend of our 15th wedding anniversary, and Rex's 9th birthday. It will be a 4-day stay for us, with Rex receiving a very special birthday suprise - stay tuned!

Buildings are done....

...but not funished. Rhrett Connor and his crew have completed their job, and we are very happy with the results - they really do high quality work, and were done sooner than we expected. Our next step is for Steve to stain the interior and exterior of the cabins, install flooring, wood stove, bathroom fixtures, and some other finish work. We will also apply "chinking" to the exterior of the bldgs. at some point, after the logs dry out some. We also need to get the septic system installed and plumbed in before we can really utilize the cabins.

We plan to head out again next weekend (this will make 4 weekends in a row). The kids are ready for a break, but we've got to get the stain sprayed on before it starts raining. We are really excited about how everythng is turning out, and feel very fortunate that we are able to move forward on our long-time dream of having our own cabin in the woods!

Cabin 1 Nearly Complete

We arrived at the Moye Compound on Friday night to see our first cabin building is nearly complete. This will be our main living quarters with a woodstove and sleeping loft. A second, identical cabin will be built at an "L" shape to the first. This will have interior dividing walls separating the bathroom/kitchen/ storage areas. This configuration will allow us to avoid building permits and rezoning of the land. We also plan to have a graveled area with water/septic hookup to park our trailer, giving us more flexibility to have guests stay over.

Speaking of septic, I checked the mail when we got home on Sunday afternoon, and our septic design has been approved - yay! Everything is happening so fast, but there is still a lot to do. Stay tuned!

Making progress

Lots of stuff going on at the property...the well has been completed, and the septic design is awaiting approval. Steve has been working with all of the contractors, spending extra time and trips out there to fall trees and finalize our layout.

Fortunately, Rex is very talented at operating our little bulldozer - he worked all day Saturday with Steve, moving logs and pushing dirt to make way for our cabin. The contractor, Rhett, showed up late Sunday with his crew and a truckload of logs. They already had the first building framed in by the time we left on Monday. It is looking awesome!

Check back for more updates and pictures - things are really moving along!

Another fun camping trip

We were able to camp over 4th of July weekend, and the following weekend....I have to say, we are having so much fun! The boys have been getting into mountain biking over these last two camping trips, leaving the motorcycles parked. They also played in the river and hiked up the hill behind our property to the road above, finding snakes, frogs, etc.

Steve got out for a ride on the local trails, and I did my usual route of late, 4 miles up dusty Hurd Road to the Tahuya River Trail for another 4 miles of rugged singletrack.

We are so fortunate to be able to spend this time together having fun! Steve and I hope that the boys will have fond memories of these camping trips in the years to come.

More camping

My work schedule has been two 12-hr shifts on Tues/Wed, and 2 8-hr shifts on Thurs/Fri, which is working out great for our weekend camping trips. We were able to escape to our property on Friday afternoon for another fun weekend! Rex, Max and Mom mountain biked, and Steve and the boys rode motorcycles. We all enjoyed the campfire, and spent some time by the river. Rex has been bringing a shovel with him and is attempting to "dig for treasure." So far, he has found a sink/faucet set up that was washed down from December's flooding.

We enjoyed a spaghetti/salad dinner on Friday night, and Saturday's menu was tacos. Dessert for both nights was "S'more's" which Steve and I prefer to use a Mr. Goodbar and the boys like the plain Hershey's bar. Rex is the only one who likes his marshmallow to be "burnt."

We did run into Belfair on Saturday...there was an estate sale we checked out, then went to QFC, where the boys picked out a couple of books - Max is reading "Indiana Jones, Kindom of the Crystal Skull" and Rex has an interesting book entitled, "The Boy's Pocket Dangerous Book" which has instructions on how to do/make a variety of things: How to make a bow and arrow, how to make a go-kart, how to play poker, how to make a battery, etc....we are all enjoying that one.

More camping next weekend...we can't wait!

Mother's Day Weekend

We were able to get out to the property this weekend to try out my Mother's Day gift...a new trailer! We are now able to haul all of our toys inside the unit, instead of taking a separate vehicle to bring the motorcycles. It is also a better layout inside for us, as well. Needless to say, we had a great time. Steve managed to smooth out the "motorcycle track" for the boys by pulling an I-beam behind his quad. He also burned most of 1 pile of debris left over from the initial clearing process (4 more piles to go!)

Since we just got the trailer, we are still figuring out the batteries/tank capacity/water issues, and managed to depelete the batteries entirely on Saturday night. So much so, that the on-board genererator would not start. Unfortunately, Stevie forgot to throw in some jumper cables...bottom line - we would not have a furnace, lights, radio, or running water for the evening. Fortunately, I am married to the "part-time McGyver"(sp.?) and he fashioned some jumper cables out of an old extension cord. Hurray!!