formative moments

Just look at everything that happened on our project over the weekend!

After Matt got it ready in a late-night work session Friday night, it was time for grout.
Saturday morning, with help from Emily, Mom and Dad, Nona, and Andrew (and, of course, Matt) the grout arrived and filled the holes.
Under coercion, Nona played along with everyone else in leaving handprints in the extra grout.
Doesn't everyone look happy to be one step closer to being done with the foundation?!?
Matt and Andrew worked all day, laying the first, critical pieces of the forms for the concrete in our back wall.


I stopped by in the afternoon, with some friends, and we helped a little, too... (Ryan is accumulating new construction skills. And would have had use for his Christmas monkey wrench if he'd thought to bring it.)

Sunday, the concrete forms began to look impressive. After worship (which, conveniently for Matt, was at our church retreat in Julian this weekend), we kept working, and, with Jay's help, built all of the inside wall and part of the outside!

We're glad for cleverly-designed snap ties, which make form building easier, stronger, and less wasteful.

I got to try my hand at construction, too, making these little boxes (er, precision construction jigs) to keep the concrete out of the place where we need the steel columns to tie into the big bolts.
Mostly, we're relieved that a task that had seemed really daunting looks like it's going to be doable (and, even, with minimal pain!)

Thanks to all our friends who are making this work more fun. :)