Aug. 25 - Frank is headed back to Korea

At 6 a.m. this morning I dropped off my son Frank at the Des Moines airport. He has good connections on his flights back to Seoul, Korea. Minneapolis to San Francisco to Seoul. 24 hours and he'll be half way around the world once again. It was so nice to have him around us all for a few days. Frank got a chance to fish on Sundown. We also spent a morning fishing at Lake Rathbun.

Our family is already looking forward to Thanksgiving. Hopefully, we'll be in the house before then and our boys and their families can be with us. Frank is planning to bring his family to Iowa about that time (upon his return from Korea in a couple of months).

This is a rarity......Tyler, Frank and I were able to have a couple of beers together last evening at a Des Moines pub. Nachos, wings and a couple of beers with my sons.....and I'm a happy man.

On Thursday, Tom's guys finished installing the white-washed pine car siding under the deck covers.

The state electrical inspector was here and completed his inspection on Thursday.

Friday morning while Tom and Chuck measured and cut the remaining gable end trim, I was busy staining all those cedar 4x4's. It's all ready now to be permanently installed on Monday on all 8 gables.

Late Friday afternoon, the crew of three finished up their stone work on the front of the house.  Three long days for them. I hadn't anticipated that it would take that long but it looks nice. Francisco, his son Francisco and Santiago. They are from Guadalajara.

All the support posts will be boxed in with cedar boards. All the cedar gets stained the same dark color as the gable trim. The color was chosen to also match the rear deck color.

We are ready for foam insulation of the exterior walls which starts on Monday. Word is that we should have our new Eagle French slider and the brick mold that goes around the exterior of the 4 doors from the great room to the deck. When those pieces arrive, we should FINALLY be able to fully enclose the house and get all the siding & exterior work done. The replacement door from the EZ Porch people is scheduled to arrive on Monday, too. I'll be busy next week painting the garage doors and staining more cedar.

This afternoon, we paddle our kayaks over to Tim & Jill's place for lunch and social time. It will be a great opportunity to meet a lot of other Sundown property owners. Everyone has to paddle something to their beach to attend this affair. No motorized boats.