A Birthday to Remember!

Happy 29th Birthday Nathan!  It's a birthday he, nor I, will ever forget.  How many people can say they've built their own home, and by the age of 29!  Wow, how amazing!  We are SO blessed to have such a loving husband and father.  We'll shout it from the roof tops, we have the best husband/daddy!!!
Saturday, Nate spent his birthday working on our house, we had a few people bewildered as to why he would chose to do that, but to be honest it was the biggest blessing and best birthday gift he could receive, to have the help of wonderful friends who volunteered their time and came to serve our family and help build our new home!  Thanks to Bob, Trevor, Layne, Curtis, Leighton and Japheth who came out this past Saturday, we are so blessed by each of you and learning by your example what it is to be a joyful servant.  With all their help they were able to build the gable end sets for the rafters, built temporary walls for the roof trusses to sit on because our dormers where built incorrectly and will have to be rebuilt, they built temporary window wells and were able to begin backfilling around the house and stood about 6 rafters.  By around 7pm they got rained out, but Nathan was able to come home and spend time with the kids and late that evening Nate and I got to go out to eat and get a free meal for his birthday, it was a wonderful, blessed birthday!

^ Japheth unloading the packer ^

^ Trevor packing the backfill ^

^ Leighton building temporary walls for the roof trusses to sit on ^

^ backfilling around the house ^

^ Zeke got a toolbelt & Kenzie was just happy to have a "color" and has her markings all over our home! ^

^ some of her coloring ^

^ Zeke has his toolbelt on just like dad and ready to work ^

^ temporary window wells and backfilling around them ^

^ Nate, Layne, Zeke, Japheth & Kenzie working on the gable end rafters, Layne was having Zeke and Kenzie help pull the trigger on the nail gun, I can't even begin to tell you how excited they were about that! ^

^ Curtis getting the wood measured, cut and ready to use ^

 ^ McKenzie watching all the action ^

^ blood blister after hammering his thumb ^

^ storm on the horizon ^

^ Leighton and his son Japheth getting the temp. walls ready for trusses ^

^ getting ready to watch them put up the first gable end roof truss ^

^ Nate in the fork lift getting ready to lift the truss and put it on the house ^

^ working on getting in situated on the house, not as easy as it looks ^

^ view of our end gable rafter from the road heading down the hill ^

^ when I got back with dinner it was starting to thunder & rain as they were trying to get the rafters up ^

^ securing the rafters that were up before the skies opened up and unleashed the rain ^

^ I ran into the basement and got a picture of all the guys eating lunch and shortly after I made it into the house the wind and rain came in force and the rain was blowing straight through the house, my kids were back in the van waiting for me.. ^

^ by the time I made it back to the car I was soaked all the way through! ^

^ I wish I could have gotten a picute that captured just how hard it was raining and blowing, it was pretty wild out there for a bit ^

FATHER'S DAY

We had a more restful Father's Day, I was up most of the night prior with contractions and pretty tired in the morning after they subsided so we all took naps.  In the late afternoon we headed to town to walk around the mall to see if we could get the contractions to start up again.  We ended the evening with pizza and a movie with the kids.  But we stopped by the property to get a family photo in front of our growing house.

^ Happy Father's Day to the most amazing husband and daddy! ^

^ and a prego shot: 38 weeks ^

PRAISE REPORT

Baby Amos was able to finally go home with his mom and dad today after 15 days in the hospital.  Praise the Lord!!

PRAYER REQUEST

Minot is preparing to be flooded.  Come this Thursday it is expected to exceed the dikes and continue to rise another 8 feet.  As we speak Nathan is at his boss's shop moving all of our items that we had stored there to another location.  What we've heard is that the river will rise another 7 to 10 feet and will flood Minot.  Here is a link to the latest report:

http://minotdailynews.com/page/content.detail/id/555925/MINOT-ORDERS-MANDATORY-EVACUATIONS--river-level-expected-to-reach-1-563-in-Minot.html?nav=5010

or

http://www.facebook.com/?sk=h#!/kxnewsminot?sk=app_190322544333196Please be praying for the MANY residents who are again evacuating and this time their homes will be flooded.