All caught up!

Hey...look at me...all caught up on my blog! I think I'm getting the hang of it. Hopefully I can just keep up with it now. : )

Well...after two weeks of my ankle still sore and swollen I broke down and went to the doctor. (I know most of you can't believe it, but I did.) What a great way to spend my stimulus check...grrr! And...she didn't have very good news for me either. I apparently have torn the ligaments surrounding my ankle - and torn them very badly. Because the swelling should have gone down by now, she (of course) wanted to do xrays to make sure it's not a fracture. I will get the results in a day or so, but in the mean time I am to wear a splint 24/7. I was also told to wear the splint and stay off of my feet for the next 2 to 4 weeks minimum...ummm...what?!? Apparently I had a 'not so happy' look on my face because she asked me if that was going to be a problem. I told her about the island and building (which I'm not so sad to get out of) but then Relay is in just 17 days! She says "is it something you have to do?" - apparently she doesn't know me very well! She said to take it very easy the in the next 2 weeks and then to go from there, but it would be at least 8 weeks before my foot will heal if I take care of it. She also told me to make sure Jamie did all of the yard work for a while - she obviously doesn't know him very well either.

my beautiful new footwear

Walden Island - Day 6 & 7

On Friday, May 30th, Jamie and I headed back up to the property for the weekend. We didn't really get much work done that evening - I had gone to lunch with Dylona earlier in the day (at my new favorite restaurant - Lil Cooperstown) and wasn't ready by the time Jamie wanted to leave. Oh well - we had our first fire (in the awesome pit that I made) and enjoyed the night.

Rick surprised us on Saturday morning and showed up to help! One of the people at the campground had brought him over to the island. Again, a HUGE help as my ankle was still not better. They were able to get all four walls up on Saturday - very tall walls! There will be a loft area up top to sleep at. I raked up the other half of the property and burned 5 piles of brush. (If you haven't been fortunate enough to rake up piles of blackberry vines - they still hurt after they're dead!)

On Sunday, Jamie started on the roof. He walks around up there like it's not big deal - I'm climbing the ladder and hanging on for dear life. I finished a book while he worked on the roof - hey, someone has to do it! After we placed the door in, Jamie said he was done for the weekend - fine with me! It rained most of the day, so things weren't going as well as we had planned. After some discussion, we decided to change the "shed" into an actual "guest house". This way we will be able to have people stay on the island with us after we get our house built. (That's still a few years away tho guys.)

Walden Island at night

Happy 4th Birthday Moxie!!

Walden Island - Day 4 & 5

Sunday, May 25th was our fourth day to work up at the property. We left early in the morning to get a good start on the day. It was Makena's first time to visit Walden Island - she was in shock over not having internet service! Poor thing - all she had was her laptop, GameBoy, books and drawing paper. She did survive, and will be happy to know that she can now get online when she is there.

The smaller boat is docked at a campground - this is how we get back/forth to the island. Our boat and wave runners are in our moorage area at the island. We'll build a dock there...some day.

Rick volunteered (yes, willingly) to help Jamie start building the shed. We will be living in the shed while we build our house. Jamie thought he was doing Rick a great service by giving him free exercise - gym memberships can be very expensive! My ankle was still sore and swollen, so I was VERY happy to not have to be doing all that digging.

We decided to put up our tent and stay in that while the shed is being built. Sunday was our first night to stay on the island.

We talked Rick in to coming back out on Monday, and by the end of the fifth day we had a floor structure!

Happy Birthday to me!

Thursday, May 22 was my (30-something) birthday! As it was the day after hauling all of the lumber, I woke up VERY sore! (Again, no sympothy for me...boo-hoo.) It was also the day of our Wine & Food Pairing Fundraiser for our Relay For Life of Hillsboro Team - Tami's Reading Railroad. There was a lot of last minute shuffling to get things ready, but we all had a great time!! Our team raised over $600 and tasted some great wines!

The class was taught by Erin Palmer - The Wine Cellar

Jamie bought me a beautiful bouquet of flowers for my birthday.

Walden Island - Day 3

Wednesday, May 21st was the third day of work on the property - the day from hell! At 9am we hauled approximatly 4500 lbs of lumber, a french door and a 3 pane window up to the lake. (My new truck did great!) We met the electrical inspector there - didn't have a few things that we needed - so we went looking for a Home Depot in the area. A few hours later we were back on the property and passed our inspection! Then...we had to unload all of the lumber. Jamie would unload the trailer with some lumber - load it on to the boat (smaller aluminium one we borrowed from Rudy) - unload it onto the dock on the island (we're borrowing the neighbor's dock as ours isn't built yet) - then we would haul it up the hill to our property...we'd repeat this process over & over & over (& over) again. Fortunately it wasn't as warm as it had been that previous weekend, but we did get some light rain throughout the day. We finished up around 9:30pm - only because it was getting too dark to see much. On one of my last trips to pick up some lumber, I slipped on the dock and twisted my ankle. You'd think I'd get out of working, but noooo.

Moxie waiting for Jamie

Walden Island - Day 1 & 2

The first day that we started to "work" on the property was Saturday, May 17, 2008. We needed to have electricty before we could get started on anything else - and getting everything scheduled for the permits took a few weeks. We had to dig a trench, place posts and set the electrical box. Our friends; Martin, Renee, Sydney & Nico came out for a visit - they grabbed shovels and helped out! Not the best day for digging...it was in the 90's that day. It would have been much more fun playing out on the lake!

Jamie & I spent the night at my sister & Chad's new house in St. Helens. We had a great dinner and celebrated our upcoming birthdays! Happy 30th T!!

Then on Sunday, Jamie & I headed back out to the lake to finish up a few things.

The goat house - 3 goats live on a small island across the canal

Mt. St. Helens - view from Silver Lake

Why Blog?

Well...everyone else has one, so why can't we??!! I think it may be easier for us to keep "in touch" with this blog then to send out all of the emails/photos that I do. I will continue to send slideshows (wouldn't want to disappoint you) of some things. I will also try to remind Jamie & Makena to add things in here and there...we don't have anything else to do you know!

I am mostly going to try to keep this blog updated on how things are going on Walden Island. Last year we purchased a 1/2 acre lot on Walden Island - a small island in the middle of Silver Lake in Silver Lake, Washington. (Silver Lake is just East of Castle Rock, WA - by the Mt. St. Helens Visitor Center.) There are about 30 houses currently - only 4 of them being full time residents. We will start building a small guest house and then stay in that while we build our house. We fell in love with the island the minute we saw it!