Our new neighbors broke ground on their house this week! They had a ground breaking party yesterday to celebrate. Kenny and I feel like we lucked out big time with our new neighbors. We love them! We are in between two darling families. Both have kids – one neighbor has five and the other four! This is a bit rare in my area. There seems to be a two kid average around here. One neighbor is a surgeon and the other is a plastic surgeon so aside from having a kid friendly neighborhood, we are also covered on the doctor front. If one of the kids’ get hurt – covered on the right! If one of the moms need a Botox boost – covered on the left! ;)
We met in the cul-de-sac of our new little neighborhood, ate food, and then went up to their lot for a quick ceremony with shovels. Such a cute idea and it was fun to meet friends of our new friends.
Seeing their lot with a fence around it in phase one construction mode made me so excited to break ground! Their lot is pretty much identical to ours. Both lots are shaped like rectangles. Deep back yards – another rarity for my neck of the woods. I am so grateful that the timing worked out and we were ready to jump on our lot when it popped up for sale. And that I was somehow able to convince my husband (who swore that we were never going to build) that we needed to build. Still don’t know how I pulled that off but I’ve patted myself on the back for it every day since.
Of course Kole was in his element with all of the dirt piles.
Good thing dad was close by to assist when needed. Every explorer needs a wing man.
View from the back of our neighbors’ lot. We had to get creative with the shape of our house when we were designing it because of the rectangle shape of the lot. I wanted the house to have a lot of windows (I love light!) and Kenny cares a lot about the yard, so we designed things in a way to maximize the light and to make the back yard feel private. My architect joked with me when I kept asking him if I had enough light that I would be walking around my house wearing sunglasses. Which is good. Because I need a new pair and that is a pretty good excuse to splurge on one.
A few more lot pics…
Yes – those are my girls. The ones in dresses scaling the construction equipment.
Gate to our new neighborhood. The lots are at the top of the little hill to the left of the picture.
View of our lot from the front. Our garages will stick out on the right side. This will all be much easier to visualize when I can share a photo that actually has something in it other than weeds. :)
Side view.
Addie was jumping up and down so I decided to join her. You know how you see all those cool pictures of people in mid air? And everyone looks so fabulous and athletic and happy and carefree!?
Yeah well we tried to pull one of those off and failed miserably. Instead I got this picture of me doing a sad little jump with my butt sticking out to the the side and all of my hair in my face and a husband who wasn’t in the mood for re-takes. Oh well. Addie looks cute and the two of us have the happy part down. We could have got there. 20 pictures later… I’m confident we could have got there.
So I know that I’ve now bored you all to death with pictures of DIRT but oh how I love this dirt! And I needed to post this for my own family records. You know. For the someday when I have time to make all of my family blog posts into books. I might be 65 before I get around to it, but someday it will happen.
We signed all of the construction loan papers tonight and these are the last pictures of the lot before we break ground (if all goes as planned – two more weeks!). That reminds me of the show The Money Pit with Tom Hanks and Shelley Long (“two weeks!”). Love that show. Love my lot. Love that pretty soon this dream of mine is going to start becoming a reality.
And now the time has come for me to stop boring you all with pictures of dirt and bath tubs.
At least for a few days. :)
Happy Monday everyone!
xoxo, Erin
HOW EXCITING!!! I would be so excited too. I would be busting at the seams. ~I know you are!~ Once it is all built and you get to know your neighbors really well. Maybe I will come down for some botox…LOL JK. I have my own doc. and I love him. :-)
Oh. and I think your mid air picture is perfect. Have a fun week.
How exciting. And what a lovely thing for the new neighbours to do. The lots look Huuuuge! How big are they?
Erin, I’m so excited for you, I felt this excitement for just a few days, we had signed a contract on 300 acres near where we are in QLD Aus but the bank would not lend us the money :( seems they have tightened their reign over here big time. I was devastated, had my house planned beside a lagoon that is on the property, knew exactly where I wanted it and have tonnes of pics on Pinterest all ready to go! I keep telling myself something else will come up at the right time but oh my heart still hurts! Enjoy your plans and I am going to live through you during this :)
How exciting!! You are so blessed to have good neighbors. The entrance to your new neighborhood is beautiful, and those views!!! Thanks for taking us along.
How exciting! What a wonderful area with great people it sounds like. I love the pictures of the girls scaling the heavy machinery! Congrats on breaking ground soon. Can’t wait to see pictures of the progress!
Not bored at all…you are always so funny. I bet once they start things will go so fast…I can’t believe how fast they build houses these days. SO excited for you! And yay on the good neighbors…they mean everything!
Totally excited to see the pictures of dirt – seriously!!! It won’t be too long before your dream home stands there :)
congrats! all parts of it are exciting! and would be so excited to have all those kids around for my sweet little guy. our neighborhood is acreage sites (min of 2-10acres) and there arent many kids. so happy that y’all’s is!
Erin, those dirt pictures are not boring at all. It’s just the beginning of a great adventure and I know you’ll document every step and we can all enjoy it with you. Very happy for you and your family. Enjoy the summer.
Vickey E.
I just ordered my 2011 blog books yesterday! Since I had my 3rd child, I’ve had to do 2 books for each year. Love, love, LOVE them! You should really do it! When I get 2011, it will make 7 books that we have. The kids love to look through them (and we do, too!) I always say that it’s all the things that I either wouldn’t have thought to scrapbook about or I would have forgotten all the fun little details by the time I got around to scrapbooking it! (I might be a few years behind!) So just some encouragement! You should do it! :)
So exciting!! I didn’t even know that there was any land left in SD to build on! It seems like every inch has already been built on.
I’m almost as giddy as you because I cannot wait to see this beautiful house in progress! And just so you know, I kept rereading the title of this post thinking it was supposed to say “a lot of pics.” Nope, that would be LOT pics. I need some more sleep : )
Happy week to you!
Thanks for sharing in my excitement everyone! You are all so sweet!
Purple Pixie – our lot is 8/10ths of an acre. It’s a great size! I feel really lucky. :)
Anonymous – I’m so sorry about the bank not coming through for you! They have clamped down on construction loans big time. Something will work out – I promise! We looked at homes for two years and had so many ups and down throughout the process. My mom kept telling me with everything that didn’t work out that it was because something better was around the corner. There were so many times that I felt sad and frustrated, but she was right. I know looking for a home can be an emotional process. Hang in there! Sometimes things happen for reasons we don’t understand until later.
xoxo, Erin
Wow, I can’t believe you’ve met your neighbors already! How funny they had a ground breaking party. Guess it’s a pretty big deal around there. Sounds like you did luck out with two great families, that really is amazing that you’ll be the “small” family! Wow.
Exciting times! So glad you will have great new neighbors!!
So exciting! I LOVE the athletic jumping pics! Now I need to go take some. :)
wow they really are huge lots! I grew up on a three-quarter acre block. Most block around here now are 1/16th of an acre!
What shape are your lots usually if a rectangle is an awkward shape to design a house for?
Erin, thank you so much for your comment, I have tears in my eyes! My husband says similar to your mum and I am getting there, I never envisioned it would be such an emotional roller coaster, I’ve never gone through any of it before as my husband already owned a home when we met. We are back to working hard and keeping focused on our plan, thanks again for your lovely comment and I cant wait to see more of your new home! Emma in Aus
Looks like so much fun! I love reading your house building posts and I think I might be a little too excited for you as just one of your blog readers:) I can’t wait til we build our dream home in a few years. You are already giving me some great ideas!!
Love your blog! We are remodeling our kitchen after completely gutting it! I think that’s stressful and a testament to a strong marriage (ha ha). Best of luck!
Laura – most lots around San Diego are rectangle… I didn’t mean that was a strange size, just that the lot shape determined a lot of things about our house like the location of the garages, etc. :)
Thanks Danielle! I had to laugh at your comment – SO true! Crossing my fingers Kenny and I are still married at the end of this process! ;)
Emma – you are the sweetest! So glad my comment helped. I have been exactly where you are and like I said, hold your chin up and know that something will work out. Probably sooner than you think. :)
How exciting! I have loved following all your house “pins”…wow! You have some fun (and big) decisions to make, what a great process and cool neighbors to boot ;)…
Getting started on Chore chartsright now my 3 are way too spoiled cuz I too would rather just do it “RIGHT” …
You’re funny! I love the jumping picture. ;-)
I love your posts Erin! It’s gonna be fun watching your house go up:)
How exciting Erin! I can’t wait to get the next installment of the house build progress. We built the house we are now in last year and it was an exciting, fun and at times stressful process but I would do it again and again!! It’s interesting how your neighbours had a party to celebrate… Over here in Australia, people joke about having ‘slab parties’ which is when the slab (foundation) goes down. Your block looks HUGE!!! can’t believe the size of it. Btw, love your jumping picture and your commentary about it. You crack me up! :)
Samantha
It is great to note that there are people who have very good relationships with their neighbors. Hopefully others can establish such especially those who are new in their neighborhoods.