Over the past year and a half we've spent many weekends at the lot pretending we were going to start soon. Jim and I especially found lots of things to do. In April we were finally able to get started on our dream. Here are some pictures from before the construction began.

This is the view from just above the driveway looking to the north-northwest. Patty, Jim & Diane are standing about at the front porch. Directly behind them will be the kitchen and dining room.

This view is also from just above the driveway. It is looking to the northeast. Directly behind the gang will be the master bedroom.

This view is also from the driveway. This one is looking south, up the hill. Our water tanks will end up in the upper left corner of this picture. The stakes in the foreground are for the edge of the garage.

This view is looking up (south) from below the house site. We hope to eventually put a lap pool in on the flat spot I am standing on. The stakes and strings in the foreground show where the corner of the dining room will be (about 15' above ground level).

Here Jim and Craig are surveying the future location of the front porch while Patty and Diane are discussing where to put a garden. This is looking east.

This is our ground breaking celebration. This happened in April. Patty and I are standing at the future location of the front door to our home. We didn't actually expect to make significant progress with the hand shovel we were using. On the left side you can see temporary stakes used to tie strings to mark approximate house boundaries.

This is looking up the same hillside shown a couple of pictures before. This is just after the temporary road was cut through to Skyline. We had to do this because we couldn't convince our neighbors to allow us to share the road that they own that goes next to our property. We will probably end up making this the permanent road (we kinda like it now that we have it).