Anyone want to picnic?

We like to go out on the weekends and have picnics on our land so I thought it would be a great idea to get a table so we don’t have to eat on the ground. One of my friends told me that Lowes has picnic tables for cheap so I looked online and they had them for $88 and they were having a free shipping special so I ordered it, they assembled and delivered it for $88! What a steal! I am pretty sure lowes did not make any money on this deal!! I was going to build one myself but the materials were going to cost me about $95! I decided to stain it because I am not a fan of the pine color. Here is what it looked like on the lowes website:

I stained it in our garage. I used a dark redwood color to cover up some of the writing stamped on the wood.

I put some pecan colored pavers down under they table to help prevent the wood from rotting. We put the table under this awesome tree that will have some good shade.

We brought Tristan’s jeep out to the land with us this time and he LOVED running over all the little “trees” and cactuses. He drove it for a long time and finally it ran out of battery!

We also planted two more of our trees! These are a peach tree and an apple tree.

We also put in our new mailbox! Nothing fancy because it is on the other side of the street from our driveway. We are starting to look official!

Read Full Post »

We have a REAL address!

Wow, Grayson county is ON IT! One day after submitting the paperwork and we have an address! See that red circle?? That is us! Woo hoo!! It’s getting official people!

Read Full Post »

More trees and developments!

We bought some more fruit trees to nurse over the summer and plant on our land this fall. Our orchard is coming along! haha! The three trees we planted last fall are all thriving and doing well. Two of these trees are ones we didn’t get around to planting last fall and the two new ones are apricot trees! YUM! I can’t wait to be overrun with fruit! All of y’all will be getting lots of fruit to eat! I guess I will have to learn how to make jam. Here are a few pictures of the trees. A few of them are already starting to bloom but they probably won’t produce any fruit for a few years. I am sure our neighbors wonder what we do with all of these trees!

I am still waiting on the Cherry, Pear, and Pixie Crunch Apple trees I ordered to get here and then we will have those to plant too. I really hope the cherry tree does well because cherries are SO expensive!

In other news, I arranged for the water company to come out and mark the water line so that we don’t accidentally hit the water line when we are building the pond. I also arranged for our land surveyor to come out and mark the exact borders of our land. AND most importantly I filled out the proper request to get us an official address. When we bought our land they just called our land #B of the neighbors address so if you write it out it looks like we have an apartment or something. Now we will have our own number and we can put in a mailbox. It will be nice to have because people always get lost coming to our land because google maps pulls up the wrong place. It’s the little things that excite me people… =P We bought our land raw so that means we have to bring in all the utilities. Over the next year or so we need to have the water company put in a meter (about $3500) and have the electric company put in a pole and electrical box (about $1000). Then eventually when we build a house we will need to have a septic system put in. I am sure learning a lot about making land livable! It takes a lot!

Read Full Post »

Update on the driveway

Well we met with our land work guy, Doug, today about building up the front driveway. We came to the decision that the most cost effective way to get a lot of dirt to build up the front would be to add a pond. We had been debating on adding a pond for the last few months so it was nice to hammer out the details. We have a creek that runs through our land so the pond will be at the very front where he can dam up the creek which will fill up the pond and then the pond will overflow down the creek when it fills up too much. I think it will be a nice feature to drive past on the way back to where our house will be built and I think the boys will have fun with it. He has to wait until the land is dry to start working on it so hopefully he will get it done sometime in the next few months. I will update on the progress! Here are a few pictures of where the pond will go:

As you look down the driveway the pond will be to the right. If you look closely you can see the creek that will feed it.

The above picture is looking back the other way so the pond will be to the left. We will lose a few trees at the front but we are ok with that because they are all thorny hackberry trees.

Also, here is a better picture of our new gate! After the pond and driveway get completed our neighbor can put the new fence in and we can put the gate up.

Read Full Post »

Ice in March!

So, we were supposed to meet with our neighbor Doug on Sunday to discuss the further bulldozing of our road to finish our driveway and low and behold a freak March ice storm thwarted our plans! It was sleeting and thundering at the same time which in turn coined the phrase “thunder sleet” all over the local news channels. Haha. Only in Texas can it be almost 80 one day and then freezing sleet the next day. So, we got to spend a lazy day at home with our boys and even had a day off of work on Monday because of the icy roads. We can’t handle much ice here is Texas :p. Hopefully we can meet with Doug this coming Sunday and get the road and front gate/fence area going!
Here is Logan enjoying the extra time with daddy!

Read Full Post »

Our new gate!!

I am so excited to share a picture of our awesome new 16 foot gate! Sorry I don’t have a better picture yet, I will post one as soon as the new fence is up and the gate is put on. I LOVE how it turned out! The big state of Texas in the middle is so us =) I can just envision pulling in our awesome driveway through this gate. Can’t wait to hang it up!

Read Full Post »

Travis’s Camping Trip

Shannon’s brother Travis asked us if he could go camping for a few days out on our land and try out some of his survival gear. We love when our friends and family can enjoy our land and make their own special memories there too. He said he has a blast even though he had an unwelcome visit from a not so friendly skunk!

I can’t believe Travis slept in this hammock the whole time he was there. I always feel like I need to have a roof over my head =P

His roaring campfire
cooking his gourmet dinner over the fire

Read Full Post »

Family Picnic

Last Friday it was beautiful weather outside for February so we went out to the land and had a picnic so Shannon could show me the work they did on the road in person. We always have so much fun out there. Tristan loves to find the perfect stick and just explore. There are so many interesting places to explore. Logan also loves it even though he still won’t walk on this own. he loves to find a stick and walk around hitting it on everything. We loves all these special moments and memories we get to create. I can’t wait until we live there all the time!

Read Full Post »

The start of the driveway…

So, we learned pretty quickly that trying to move dirt around and build up the front ditch area was something Shannon could not do himself without renting the proper heavy machinery. Lucky for us we have a great neighbor down the street that owns a bulldozer, dump truck and other heavy equipment. He came over and knocked this out in about an hour and a half =P He still needs to come back and build it up quite a bit more. Also, our other neighbor down the street is going to build us a new fence along the front a little further into the drive. It is so nice to be able to drive on now though. It’s a start!

the before…

and after about an hour and a half of moving dirt around!

Read Full Post »

Brush pile is toast!

So all that land clearing lead to a pretty large brush pile right on our future driveway so we had to burn that to clear the way for our driveway! It burned pretty quick and took about two hours for the whole pile to turn into a tiny pile of ashes. It was fun sitting around the fire. We have another large brush pile in the back we have to burn in a few weeks as well.

My manly man posing with his brush pile. haha

Read Full Post »