Where to begin?

Boy, it's been a crazy couple of weeks, and I have not had a chance to post at all. The most exciting event has been that Loralee and I were married on June 17th! What a great time we had! The ceremony and reception was held at Burke Mountain Academy, overlooking Willoughby Gap. The weather was ideal, and we had the perfect day to celebrate with our family and friends. My uncle Keith and his wife Heater catered it, we had a top-notch swing band from Glover (the Slant Six), and just over a hundred guests. Lor was beautiful in her homemade dress. She put a ton of work into planning the whole thing, and I think it amazed everyone. Meanwhile, my role was to a) pick the band, and b) set up chairs. It was tough, but I managed. I am a lucky guy.... Although we were too wired to totally enjoy the day, everyone says they had a great time ;-)

Work progressed significantly on the house while we honeymooned in Acadia. Although, we enjoyed perfect weather in Maine, here they apparently had to deal with daily thunderstorms and a severe wind-storm on Tuesday the 20th! Despite that, the stress-skin walls and roof were installed. It now looks like a real house. While going through the home design process, we explored using a stick-built baloon frame around the timberframe, but ultimately settled on Stress-skin. These are basically 4x8 sheets of 6" solid insluation with OSB on one side and sheetrock on the other. Although costing more in materials, the labor to install them is much less- It took the team 3 days to install all our walls and roof. The biggest benefit of stress-skin is the high insulation value they provide. Since there are no studs every 16 inches, there are no holes for heat to leak out of. These walls are what will make our house so efficient.

Now that the wedding is behind us, we can concentrate on building the house. Lor is done with school for the summer, so she will be working on the jobsite from here to September. In a few weeks, the siding will arrive and she can start pre-painting it before it goes up. Over this weekend, she and I sanded and oiled the beams on the first floor. Once the second floor is in, we'll need to do that as well.

One final note: Image upload is not working on this site. I am trying to find upload alternatives, but be patient with me. I've got a TON of great pictures!