PICS OF KENNEL AREA + GUEST CABIN

First 2 photos are the kennel area...



Last 5 photos are the guest cottage area. It's been raining since March. "Arggg!" We're praying for a stretch of dry weather to pour the two slabs.

DRAFT FLOORPLAN of 1st LEVEL

CLICK SKETCH TO ENLARGE + VIEW:

It is close to perfect, but we're still having problems with the "SECRET PASSAGE" swinging door from the library to the guest bathroom. A sliding door on rollers might be our best option.

We have added 4' X 4' in either direction to give the kitchen more room for entertaining & give us more "elbow room" in the master bathroom.

Porches shall be 8' deep for ~360 degrees. The big house is now 3,750 sq. feet. Oh my! Karen wants to know: "Who is gonna clean such a monster?" Ha. It is now 1,000 sq. feet larger than our 5 bedroom house in the medical district of San Antonio.

GIRLS SWIMMING WHILE WAITING FOR LOG DELIVERY

Jenna and Amy and Mommy sure needed to cool off after tramping around in 95 degree heat up at Highwater this week. We camped Tuesday thru Thursday up at the lake to wait for the delivery truck which came from out-of-state and was a few days late.

Our timeshare is only 10 minutes from Highwater, and we stayed in the mini-log cabins and played mini-golf. Then we swam with mini-tubes in a mini-pool. It was a mini-vacation! It's certainly nice to wait for something when you can stay cool in the meantime.

We were on hand to tell the builders where exactly to pour the foundation for the guest cabin. Good thing, too... because they had the location strung-up 80 feet in the wrong direction by the time we got there. Dad was VERY relieved we were on-hand, as he had an Ocelot in surgery at the Zoo and couldn't get there in time for delivery.

As surprised as we were to see the size of the massive rig that delivered the logs for the guest cabin, unbelievably, it will take not one but THREE semi-trailers to deliver the big house in a few months. Holy Hounds!

LOGS DELIVERED for GUEST CABIN

Logs for the guest cabin got delivered JUNE 13th. The white pine smelled so good and fresh! It almost looked like a giant child dumped his whole box of Lincoln Logs on our street. Amy (bottom picture) posed on the logs, and phoned her Nanny in Canada, saying: "I sat on your house today!"

Road Work - Today - Finally!

Finally broke ground on the kennel road today! Whoohoo. Chris and crew dumped load after load of fill.

The bobcat got a workout too. Lots of trees removed at the kennel site. The kennel driveway even has a culvert now, in case it rains. We are trying to convince the creek to go where we want it to. Ha ha!

SHOWING GRANDMOTHER AROUND

We met the contractor, Bobby, and the kennel builder, Chris, up at Highwater on June 4th. Even got a picture of us "signing the contracts on the dotted line."

The kids had fun showing their grandmother "Nanny" where her guest cabin is going to be. All three men (and some teens belonging to Chris) helped stake out the kennel and big house. The trick was to find the high-ground and avoid the wet-weather creek.

"Private Property" signs were posted. The women-folk almost melted in the 90+ heat. Nobody saw a snake. It was a good day.

We went swimming afterward to cool down. Dad ripped the back of his shirt nearly off completely in the thicket (and got a very funky sunburn). And, somewhere in the forest of cedars, Dad's new pair of reading glasses are making some bugs very happy.

EXAMPLE OF 360 PORCH RAILINGS

We found this pic online... It's very close to what we want.

Imagine the roof is GREEN instead of RED, the fireplace INSIDE instead of OUT, and you get the idea of how our three-gable main house will look once complete!

PHOTOS OF GUEST CABIN LIKE OURS

Our Guest Cabin will be a bit larger than this; same style. You get the idea, though...

Ain't it cute?

We've decided to make one large bedroom instead of two mini bedrooms on the main floor. Upstairs, the loft will be tall enough for kiddos to sleep in, but not much else!

New 3-D Plans – “The Ashley”

Here are the architect's computer renderings:



And here is the pool Karen & the kids want:
(We'll have to make do with an above-ground pool from Wal-mart, though, for the first few years. Problem with land at Canyon Lake is the darn rock. You almost have to blast to get a hole big enough for a pool. Sean says, "Let's wait for grandchildren before we put in a pool." Ha.)

TWO MOVIE CLIPS OF CANYON LAKE

This movie was shot NEW YEAR'S EVE 2006 - at our timeshare at Canyon Lake. We posted these two slideshows to show y'all why we've fallen in love with God's Paradise.

CANYON LAKE MOVIE MONTAGE

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

GUEST CABIN SPECS

This is the Guest House.

Two bedrooms plus loft.

Here are the Main House plans...

(Each graph square is equal to one square foot = 3,000 Sq. Feet)

Lower Level:

(See the 'secret passage way' in the library?)

Upper Level:

(The pre-teens will have their own laundry.)

The Carport & Indoor Movie Theatre:

(Imagine 3 rows of flips seats & 3 cars.)

SURVEYING THE LAND

Today we mucked around our new property in the rain.

Sean was acting like that dude on the TV commercial, testing his cell phone for reception. "Can you hear me now?"

Well, I couldn't. We had zero bars. And I got hopelessly lost in the trees.

We hung windsocks up to mark the way for the lumber delivery trucks expected soon. Our van got stuck in the ruts of our "driveway" for hours. Sunk to our knees in mud. Gross!

PHOTOS IN THE RAIN

Okay... a quick update:

We hired a company to do the topographical survey today. We break ground on the kennel in less than a month. The cheque cleared for the deposit on the cement. And the logs are being cut this week for the Guest Cabin.

KENNEL FLOORPLAN SKETCH

There shall be 10 dachshund pens + 4 labrador pens!!!

Sean designed this plan after 31 years designing exhibits and enclosures for various zoos across the U.S.A.

THE GUEST HOUSE - "TRAILBLAZER MODEL"

This is the Guest Cabin - AKA: "The Trailblazer" - it's only 680 square feet (if you include the loft).

We hired "Real Log Homes" of Texas to build it.