We’re really excited that we now have a concrete slab!

It was 0630 on a cold, wet and foggy Monday morning when the concreters arrived with a pump truck, and throughout the morning 9 concrete trucks made it up our hilly driveways and the slab was made! It took an entire morning to pour the 40 cubic metres of concrete into the box and into the pier holes (for carport and pergolas). It was 10 more cubic metres than we thought, and thus it was over budget, slightly, but we are thrilled that this major step is now complete!

Monte used the vibrator to work in the concrete. He really loved being part of the process, and is very proud that he is doing each step of the build.

Monte at work

Little Matty, all rugged up, watching the trucks etc in awe!

Two little children overlooking the valley (covered in fog!)

One exciting thing that we are doing before building the frame is drawing the plan onto the slab. We’ll be able to walk around our ‘house’ and see where the rooms and windows are. I am particularly excited about this.

Today we are having lots of gravel delivered (40 tonnes!) for the septic system. Yesterday we had one of the tanks set in place (thanks to Wally’s digger) at the house site. The tank will go on the west side of the house – sort of outside the ensuite window, which will be opaque. The other tank will go up the hill so we can have a gravity-fed water supply. We also began the digging for the septic system: three large trenches are now to be seen near the house site and from the bottom of our street it is obvious that work is happening on our house! Today more work on the septic will be done.

Work at the site yesterday – Wally moving a water tank around back of house. Septic trenches at left of photo.

Life is exciting. Georgia starts school on Tuesday next week and I am nervous. I don’t really want her to go; she’ll be away for so much of each day and I will miss her! She is so ready though, and she is so excited! It is wonderful that she is confident and comfortable with starting school because she knows her class and has already become familiar with the school and has good friends. It’s just me who needs to survive the transition! We need to cover her school books and I need to do some mending and name-tagging of uniforms. We’ll be going into the city to buy school shoes and she will be ready with her Princess lunchbox on Tuesday morning. Weather is forecast to be wet and 16 degrees; it’s hard to believe this is summer, but we are glad we are not in Adelaide!