The House Building Has Started!!!!!

We had not received any e-mails or calls that they started building our house last week, but we decided to do a drive by on Saturday to see if by chance they may have started and not notified us. We were pleasantly surprised that they had actually started building our house. Yay!!! Below are a few pictures we took on Saturday.

You can see all the plumbing pipes here.

This is from the side that the garage will be on. The pipes here are for the hot water heater. Also notice the footings being placed.

more plumbing

another angle of the garage side

a distant view from the road.

It is not much yet, but definitely the beginning of our new home. Robin and I are currently traveling and will not be back home until April 9th, so by then they should at least have the foundation poured and maybe start on the framing. I guess we will see!!!

More Family Fun !!!!!

We had the blessing of having Neal's parents (Brenda and Gary) visit this past weekend. They arrived on Friday evening and left at noon on Sunday, but we were able to pack in quite a bit of action in that short amount of time. First thing Saturday morning we drove to Kentucky as neither of my parents had been there before. We just went up to Franklin, KY and we showed them where the old PIC office used to be located. We then proceeded back to Hendersonville, TN to do some quick shopping and a brief tour of Hendersonville followed by a tour of our house lot and the model home of the house we are building (FYI nothing has been started on the house yet, but all the purchase orders were cut last week and they usually start the foundation within 2 weeks of the purchase orders being placed. So hopefully they will start in the next week!!!)

We then had lunch and went back out for touring fun. Next stop..... downtown Nashville so mom and dad could find some souvenirs. It was a bit hectic downtown so we did not stay long. Next stop.... you guessed it, one of our favorite places to take people ..... the Opryland Hotel. Below are some pictures we took while at the Opryland Hotel.

Here is Mom and Dad at the Delta Entrance. Funny they left the Delta in Arkansas to visit the Delta in a TN hotel.



It's a bird, it's a plane, it's, it's............

it's us figuring out how they do service work in the domes located in the hotel. I finally saw the ladders and explained to everyone else.

Here is one of the pools with Gold fish. They were huge!!!

Gary and Brenda could not resist horsing around a little. If you come visit us you will get to take your picture here as well!!!

Looks like all the touring wore them out!!

After leaving the Opryland Hotel, we finished our drive by tours of Hendersonville and Gallatin. We had supper at Logan's Roadhouse and then Robin fixed up a very yummy apple crisp for dessert later that night (it was very yummy). We topped the trip off on Sunday with Shipley's donuts for breakfast, attending early worship service, and a brunch at O'Charleys. I think Dad's highlight of the trip was O'Charleys. Nevertheless, we thoroughly enjoyed visiting and touring with them this past weekend, but wished they could have stayed longer. We are definitely looking forward to their next visit!

Go fly a kite.....

The weather was wonderful this past weekend. Robin and I hated to waste such a wonderful warm weekend, so we tried to spend plenty of time outside. First, we took a 3 mile walk around the neighborhood. During that walk we brainstormed on how to spend the remainder of the day. Let's see, beautiful day, 15-30 mph winds............we should go fly a kite!!!! It was on then, we could not wait to get to Robin's least favorite discount store to look for the kite to out fly all kites! I was quite surprised at the lack of kite selection we had. They had no big nylon kites, but only the small plastic $1.00 kiddie kites. So we decided to each get a kite......

Here is Robin with her Lightning McQueen Kite (from the movie Cars)

Here is Neal sporting his Justice League kite (Batman, Superman, and Green Lantern)

Robin attentively flying her kite....

She looks so relaxed and happy!

A little video coverage of Robin's sweet kite flying skills... Napoleon Dynamite would be proud!!

Neal has a few sweet skills as well....

He had a very good time flying kites. Almost looks like he is giving a Vulcan hello...

Oh no .... Lightning McQueen is coming in for an attack!!!

No worries the Justice League will assure that order is maintained.

Robin began to pout when we had to leave.

She cheered up some when Neal suggested they come back soon.
The happy couple after a warm afternoon at the park flying kites!

House Update - March 8th

We took a trip over to our lot yesterday to see if any progress had been made on our house. Basically the only change is that some gravel was added to form a drive way of sorts (I suppose this is to facilitate bringing materials in for the building process.) We did find out on Friday that our initial loan approval came through which I think means that everything is a go. Yay! Below is a picture from 2 weeks ago and a picture we took yesterday.

Picture from 2 weeks ago.

Picture from yesterday.

Hopefully, they will begin some "real" construction in the next few weeks and we can show some progress!

Weekend Fun

We had the honor of having Robin's parents (Leland and Diana) visiting us since last Wednesday (they left early this morning). We had a really good time visiting, breaking bread, and even playing a few games of Yahtzee during the visit. On Saturday, we went over to our house lot and toured the model home of the plan that we are building. We then proceeded to do a little touring and went over to the Opryland hotel. Below are a few of the pictures of us at the hotel.

Robin and I at one of the fountains in the Delta area.

Diana and Leland at the same fountain....

more from the Delta.....

Delta.....

Delta.... (can I help ya help ya help ya?)

This and the next few were in the Garden Conservatory room (I think)

Looks like someone was getting hitched!

Looks like I should have been standing next to Robin here. Maybe I could paste my picture in later. :)

Leland and Diana are horsing around here....


We could not resist a little horse play ourselves.

Needless to say, we had a blast during their visit and wished they could have stayed another week. I think they would have as well since we should be in the 70's this weekend. I am sure it will be much cooler in South Dakota.

The start of our blog........

Greetings family and friends!!! Welcome to Matthews Mountain Messages (we are trying to make a play on "Waltons Mountain"). A place where you can discover the most recent happenings in our lives. We hope we can keep this blog lively and interesting for everyone.

We thought this would be an excellent avenue for showing the progress of our new home that we are building (actually some cool contractors and handymen are building the house, but we are paying them to do so). Below are some of the first pictures we have of our lot (many of you may have already seen these pics):

This is a shot of the lot from the road. Look at those trees!!!! Yay!

Here is a close up of those trees.....

Here is the house plan from outside

First floor plan....

and the second floor plan.

We are really excited about the house and look forward to giving everyone updates on it. Hopefully they will start preparing the foundation in the next few weeks and we can start showing everyone some real progress!!!