page 13
in the summer of '03 the szuplats purchased property
on 12 vacation lane.
found here will be details of putting a structure up
written mostly by erica and photographed a lot by ben,
however like most things in life there are exceptions....
for instance ben wrote that last useless sentence.
6.19.04
erica cleans the tub
ben cleans the dogger
dogger gets an obviously needed brushing (much to her
chagrin)
my very own newlywed tackles the mysterious tree swarmed
by yellow jackets, flies, and black butterflies
july 5th
ben here... first of all our apologies for not being
as prompt to update the sight lately... our only excuse is that
its been busy
we have:
been to kim and joes wedding... which was wonderful...
nice job plouffe
we have been to colorado where we saw beers and mountains
and deers
and erica tried to get away
but was caught and imprisoned in a little tent
we saw rush at redrocks.... just about the coolest
thing ever!
erica will probably try to run away again after seeing
that i posted this picture of her doing her old woman impression
we returned and met jack and justin
then we had a party
we have been debating weather or not to continue this
site...watch here for our decision...
july 15
on july 9th (one year and a day after stach and peggy
closed on the land) we had our closing!!! now we are big mortgage
owners. there were not as many papers to sign as people may lead
you to believe. although, i was preturbed by the fact that we
had to show id's and sign a booklet because of the PATRIOT Act.
that same morning, we also received a gift of a pool table for
the new home. this was bestowed by someone who has already done
much for us, but after much debate we decided to accept the pool
table all the same. Thank You clayton. thank you all who also
came to our open house and celebrated with us!
ben lines up a shot, with clayton eyeing the table
we have not done a whole lot of house work this past
week or so. we are gearing up for painting the trim, and erica
shoveled around some dirt tonight in the driveway and front yard
this evening. it was not much of a dent in the yardscaping that
needs to be done, but it was good just to be outside after two
days of rain! as you can see, we took our dogger off to main street
for some tourist snacks, i mean, i mean people watching. we had
one scary blairwitch night with strange rustlings and animal screams
coming from the woodsy power lines. something set off our driveway
light, but we never saw the beast in question. our neighborhood
is otherwise quiet and friendly and we have been able to enjoy
these recent weeks visiting with various friends from the city
and afar, hanging out on our porch and in the bogs with the dog,
and just relaxing.
aug. 3
the dogger says it all! resting up before
her big vet visit tomorrow. we have to get her rabies vaccination
especially since cape cod is certainly no longer rabies free.
we have not been up to much house work lately. we have been up
to lots of poker and pool of course. ben did build a fabulous
box around our kickspace heater (the heater will keep our toesies
warm in the breakfast nook in winter!)
whew! it's dusty under there!
we made a trip to upstate NY to see family and unfortunately
all we got were photos of jack!?!? it's a jack montage...
we are hoping the blatant use of cute baby photos will
hide the lack of house information...?
aug.8
ben begins to paint the trim!
aug 18
painting of the trim continues at a leisurely pace-
and the dog is not of much assitance except being good company.
the only trouble with our deep blue is that it takes several coats
to get even coverage.
ben begins some yahd work! after picking up wood from
our fallen over (again!) wood pile , he rakes out some mounds
of dirt left randomly around our uneven yardscape, still mostly
untouched since construction. plans are in the works to get some
stone for the driveway. especially in our most torrential rains
yet- the leftovers of hurricane charley, we had a massive!! puddle
in the front yard and a giant crevace in the driveway and much
sand of our driveway went down the river that was vacation lane.
we also recently had our first power outage. someone flipped their
car near the bottom of vacation on john parker and took down a
telephone pole too. apparently they were all right and we got
our power back at 3 a.m. or something like that ( i was alseep!)
the dogger has taken to the shower lately. it hasn't
even been that hot but she likes to hang out there and although
she is making it muddy, i don't have the heart to kick her out...
aug 30- smile for the camera!
dogger gets another bath. she has a busy week, getting
sedated on her second trip to the vet. she hadn't been in so long
that she needed 2 appt.s to get in all her shots and get her swollen
gummed teeth cleaned. she also gets a little lump snipped off
(she proudly bears 2 stitches!) and her nails trimmed some more.
she has recovered from her day "trip" and is back to
her normal un-droopy-smile self.
ben gets to take another flying trip with don and they
do a flyby over the house! you can tell ours by the sandy yard!
ben has scheduled a work day and hired our connection to getting
some stone or shells for the driveway in about a week. we continue
to paint house trim and have the whole east side done! half of
the front is done as well. weather is looking less humid (thankfully!)
and so we will forge ahead...
despite not having any grass, we were lucky enough
to have a gift of a pushmower! erica tries out mowing the floor
and the dogger tries to get in on the action (and a haircut?)
clayton supervises while ben, stach and pete try out
different spots for the pool table which was slid around the floor
(via carpet samples!) to make room for larger seating area in
the main room. stay tuned for more house work. for those of you
who are still visiting the site, i promise there will be more
house related stuff to come....there will be the gas stove installation
coming soon!
the east side is all done! (view from vacation lane)
labor day weekend
the front is all done! (less front door)
we work our way around to the west side of the house.
ben can be seen in the top right corner of both pictures. he was
diligent and has been hauling the tall ladder around the house
and painted all the trim at the peaks and the front dormer (including
the blue diamond shingle!
sept. 10 wkend.
there came no rains on saturday and so the trim painting
continues. ben has set us up for the final side, ladders a-ready.
on sunday, he shoveled the edge of the driveway and cleaned up
several areas in anticipation of our deliveries of fill, rocks
and seashells.
paul and his shiny truck came and made several runs
to the mecca of landscaping supplies.
we brought the grade up around the back step and then
spread some planks and seashells. very rustic. we used some logs
to delineate driveway of rock and pathway of seashell (we think
the shells might bleach out lighter yet.) our next project is
to get more fill fro the rest of the area behind the house....
october 1st this is the
little firepit we got! it's still on dirt as we continue to plan
the yard design... we got some more things hung up on the walls...
mirror erica painted herself and shelves she stained herself....
stach worked hard all saturday and installed the gas
stove!!!
with a little help from ben!
it works great!
Click Here to
see the latest house goings on!
bens first attempt at inserting a counter.....provided
by http://www.digits.com/