Friday, August 17, 2007

August 2007: Basement Construction 8/7-8/9


8/7 Here the footers are being formed to make the foundation for our home.


8/7 Even the locals - fawn, went to inspect the progress of the construction!


8/8 We have concrete! Footers are poured and ready for walls.






8/9 Perimeter drain and pea gravel fill installed.


Thursday, August 16, 2007

July 2007: Digging the Basement 7/31

The house was plotted in a difficult way to stake out. The builder and the foundation engineer spent 4 hours investigating how the plot was supposed to be. Finally they made progress in staking after having the floor engineer add more information to the drawing so that they could properly lay it out.

This was the first scoop of the dirt.

The weather was really hot and it was very dusty everywhere. At the end of the day, six hours to be exact, there were two big pile of dirt on the lot .......

and next to it, there was a big hole in the ground!

Here is the garage floor.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

July 2007: Lot Clearing 7/24

Warning: From now on, the house construction related blog will be very boring.
CY does not know much what to describe since the pictures will be pretty self-explanatory. M knows a lot more about the construction step-by-step process but we think the details will be too boring to most our readers. We are going to try our best to label the pictures.

7/24 12:49 Lot clearing in process.


The yellow equipment, nicknamed by CY as the "tree-eater-monster" was placed on site to "eat the tree". Trees and shrubs were fed into the equipment and was ground into mulch.

July 2007: Breaking Ground 7/16

"You mean the two kids who have 2 houses are homeless now?" asked Uncle John, shocked.

That's right!

We are building a new house, in a newer sub-division about 1 mile away from where we used to live.

Within the same week that we got rid of M's house, we broke ground at the new lot.



The lot from the main street.






7/16 A temporary driveway was put in.

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

July 2007: Bye Bye, House!


July 15th, we bid our house goodbye!

M lived in this house for 6 years and 1 month. In the last 1 year, we spent our life together in this house after we got married.

We loved spending time on the deck in the wooded backyard;
In late spring, we liked to sit in the sun near the edge of the deck, doing whatever.
In early summer, we liked to sit in the shade, grilling, eating and drinking away.

Another of our favorite (Gus would agree to this) is the sliding door;
In the winter, Gus will spend all day staring through the glass door watching for signs of other critters. Any slight movements of any sort would not escape his eyes. He would normally growl so ferociously when he sighted any intruders.

I hope the birds in the backyard woods will miss us. M is always very generous about feeding the birds in the winter - we had 3 bird feeders! However, I think the squirrels would miss him more since they are so notorious about stealing birds' feed. In the summer, we normally feed the hummingbirds by the daylilies.

We will miss our yard, back deck, trees, cardinals, squirrels and chipmunks when we move into the little teenie weenie townhome.

At the same time, according to CY's-oh-so-optimistic-mom, "The new thing won't come if the old thing does not go".

I promise you, we are up to something!

Below pictures:
(left) Loading the little red truck to be sent to M's dad for repair.
(right) messy townhome!


June 2007: Asheville, NC Part II




M was tasked to be the activity planner for this trip since CY was taking on the same task for the next big trip. Yes, this household is all about 'equality' and 'partnership'.

We spent the first day at Chimney Rock Park. It is a privately owned park south Asheville, NC. The highlights of this location is the Chimney Rock, a big rock (monolith) standing by itself due to errosion. It stands 315-ft and the views from there is breathtaking.

We spent all day hiking all the trails. The ones at the higher elevations, namely the Skyline-Cliff Trail Loop were quite rugged and it took us about 2 hours to make the loop. At the end of the Skyline Trail is the view of the upstream of the Hickory Nuts Waterfall on open rocks. Then we returned to the Chimney Rock on the Cliff Trails where the Last of the Mohicans was filmed (the chasing scene at the end of the film). The coolest but also the most tiring trail is the Outcropping Trail which actually consists of multiple short trails that are around and below the Chimney Rock such as Needles Eye, Subway and Spiral Stairs. These trails are mostly wooden steps running through the cracks of the rocks, either straigh up or down or encircling some cool rock formation. Along these trails, there are overlook points that offer nice panaromic views of the area and also interesting natural phenomenon. The easiest trail was the Hickory Nut Falls trail. At the end of the 30-minutes hike is the rewarding spectacular view of the Falls.

Half way between Asheville and Chimney Rock Park lies the Eastern Continental Divide. M is working towards a goal to take a picture of himself in front of every of these signs that he could possibly find.

There is more pictures at our multiply site: (somehow the link icon does not work - does anyone know how to insert a hot link?)

http://angcy.multiply.com/photos/album/4/June_2007_Asheville_NC_Chimney_Rock_Park

Sunday, August 5, 2007

June 2007: Asheville, NC Part I

We were looking for a place to spend our first vacation together sometime early Spring. We wanted somewhere within driving distance, somewhere that offers short hiking trails and mountain bike trails. While looking up the directory, we decided on Asheville, North Carolina.

Mid May, on a pleasant Sunday morning, with our luggages and m-bikes, we headed south east towards Asheville.

The drive from Indy to Knoxville through Louisville was uneventful. After Knoxville, the scenery became more scenic. We passed by a place called "Stinky Creek". At this time, we were driving along part of the Smokies Mountain Range. It was surrounded by hills, and actually quite homey - very similar to Karak highway from KL to CY's home town.

We stayed at Crowne Plaza Golf Resorts just off the Interstate one exit away from the Asheville Downtown exit. It is on top of a small hills and surrounded by its own golf course. Our unit is a cute round hut-looking chalet and is tucked even further away from the traffic.