March brought epic snowfall, historic avalanche conditions and big powder days. So, naturally our shoveling continued well into late-March. But, we also were able to enjoy some amazing skiing and since we can’t do anything about the weather, we decided to just keep shoveling and take the opportunity to play in the snow whenever we could.

New avalanche slide path from the top of Peak One in Frisco. That big wide open space used to be filled with trees. This is about 10 minutes from our property and is the view from my parents’ deck.

On March 9, we celebrated Kelsey’s 37th birthday. The two of us were able to sneak away for a couples only ski morning at A-Basin (complete with thigh deep snow!), then enjoyed a family birthday party complete with two kinds of Kelsey’s favorite pie. Yum!

The birthday boy on Steep Gully #4 at Arapahoe Basin.

That time we ran out of birthday candles and needed to use tea lights! ha!

All that snow brought another family shovel day on March 10. We were thankful to have the full crew up there, including Kelsey’s mom, Laurie to help out. We’ve been doing a good job of keeping everything clear and the gigantic tarp that is covering the sheathing is keeping that wood dry and hopefully warp free.

The cutest 5-year old shoveler on our crew.

View to the east from the northwest corner.

Snow continued the second week of March, which put building on a bit of a hold. But, we finally got a weather window on March 15 and Kelsey was able to begin framing for the chimney and start to plan for the interior structural wall (this is the wall that will hold up the loft floor). We had some friends visit from Denver for the weekend too and were grateful to have our friends Josh and Lindsay be willing to help out at the property too.

You rock, Lindsay! Thanks for bringing your positive energy to the job site!

When we moved to Summit County, we were fortunate enough to be able to hang on to our rental property in Lakewood. This rental property is one of our key financial strategies for our long term goals and right now we’re certainly happy to have the extra income to help offset some of our other monthly expenses - yeah, I’m talking about you daycare! On that note, any interest in a blog post on how we can afford to make this dream happen? Drop us a comment if that would be helpful for us to explain in a bit more detail.

We’ve had the same tenants for the last three years. They informed us in late January that they would be departing in mid-March, so we knew that we’d have a few work days in order to get it ready for our new tenants to move in on March 29. In all actuality, this timing turned out to be pretty great since we’re in a bit of an in between period with waiting for the SIP panels to be finalized and delivered. So, Kelsey spent a number of days in the city to make repairs and do additional maintenance to be ready for our new renters.

Speaking of SIP panels, we finally received the shop drawings on March 22. Since we had put the initial deposit down on February 13, we thought the drawings would arrive a couple weeks sooner than they did. Kelsey and our structural engineer are going through a really detailed and thoughtful review before we pull the trigger on ordering them. Once we have approve the drawings, the production process will begin and in 6-8 weeks our walls and roof panels will arrive!

“This is it. Don’t get scared now.” - name that movie :-)

Once we know the delivery date of the panels, we’ll be able to order our steel beams for the rafters, line up our crane to help lift the panels on the roof, and order the floor joists for the loft. So, we’re getting so darn close to having an actual shell of our home. Then, we’ll be off to the races in earnest.

And - one of these days will be the last day we have to shovel the sheathing and snow blow the perimeter of the house. Any guesses? Drop us a comment and whoever has the closest date we’ll send a little prize from Colorado.

We hope your spring is off to a great start! We think it will be spring here in the mountains at any momen

Cheers,

Cory