I do believe this is the hottest its been since we have been up here. We have a record high of 102! Our heat indexes are rivaling those of Southern Mississippi! Florida's heat index is cooler than ours...if a heat index of 107 can really be cooler than 114! Hope all are staying as cool as can be with this heat wave.

I observed this year that things bloomed a little earlier than usual. The locust trees leaves turned yellow before Summer even began. Normally they do so after the beginning of Summer. Also the blackberries produced an unusual large size and in abundance. I am wondering if this weather pattern has anything to do with those things.

Well besides the weather not much has been going on. We are working on getting our fencing for the lagoon so we can be finished with that.

Last Thursday we went to the dr's and the baby is still healthy and active. The tech also said looks like its a girl! That would certainly be a first after having three boys! I guess time will tell.

We missed most of Saturday & all of Sunday of the DC because our oldest got sick with high fever, headache and throwing up. Monday K got the same thing. Hubby and I are hoping not to get it but it's not looking that promising since it starts with an innocent scratchy throat and runny nose - a lot like allergies. *sigh*

Well that about sum things up around here.

I have a good reason for not having been around much for quite some time. We are expecting. I'm currently 16 weeks. Last year we lost our baby boy when I was 16 weeks. So I am at that pivotal point right now but with one difference. This time we had an ultrasound at 15 weeks. The baby looked good, was active and had a good heartbeat but then again that's no guarantee that all will be well. I am on all sorts of things to keep what happened last year from happening again. We have been praying a lot for a happier outcome. And no we weren't planning this little tyke.

Our next ultrasound is on the 29th and we hope all is still going well. I will be almost 18 weeks then and we might even get to find out if this little one is a boy or girl. After having three boys it will probably be another little boy. They say the more you have of one gender the higher the chance of having the same. But truthfully it doesn't matter to me. I just want this little one to survive.

Well you can "meet" our little snowflake baby, which is due around December 31. These are the ultrasound pics we got. Baby measured 15wks 3 days - a little ahead of schedule which was a huge relief. The baby was even sucking it's thumb.

Hubby has been experiencing sympathy pains. I was exhausted the first several months. I haven't gained a lot of energy really. Sadly he has been unexplainably tired too. Which means we haven't been getting a whole lot done for upstairs like we had expected. But he does have the smoke detectors installed upstairs - which finishes up all the electrical for the entire house. He also finished putting up the boards on the hallway back wall. We have a few top boards to put up in our room on the South wall and the staircase walls have to be completely boarded. The boys' room also needs boards put up. The stairs still have to be "finished" which means just a real simple stair solution until later down the road when the real staircase can be finished out. Also we have to put some outside boards upstairs for the windows and I believe that will complete things to get the final inspection of upstairs. He has been slowly getting back into the swing of things. We have yet another deadline - hopefully we can make this one though.

Sorry it's been awhile since I have made an update. A lot has transpired and I have been really busy or just plain tired. That said, back in May we pushed and pushed and we still did not make our deadline of final inspection on May 21st. That was rather frustrating and disappointing. We had company coming the 22nd so we needed an extra room for sleeping and so the inspector gave us the okay to use one of the rooms upstairs. Phew. That was a lifesaver.

The week my friend came to stay she had a lot planned. She arrived by train early Saturday. I saw a lot of Kentucky that week hehe. It was a full and busy week and I hope she had a good time despite dealing with our bipolar child.

We haven't done a whole lot on the house since she was here. We have been recuperating from pushing so much in May. We did move some things around. He moved the fireplace mantle into our room. The mantle was the one found in the house that hubby's Italian great great grandmother lived in down in south Louisiana. The house dated to the turn of the 19th century. Then he moved the antique dome top trunk of mine which I had bought when I was about 17. It dates to the early 1880s. Also for safety reasons we moved the butter churn that was hubby's great grandmother's {or was it his great great grandmothers - don't remember for sure now}. Eventually it will be relocated into the kitchen. But for now I have no place for it there. So in our bedroom it stays for safe keeping.

In the photo above you can see the walls and ceiling. Currently there is no trim on anything. That will come much later. A lot of people who see the wallboards think they ought to be stained. But we really want to paint the walls. I need color! The ceiling is v-groove boards that have no seam whatsoever. We will eventually stain the floors but I am researching a lot of options first. For downstairs I am going to be trying a solution of iron/vinegar to see what color stain it gives to pine. Our downstairs floor is currently a subfloor made of plywood and I am tired of a bare floor. I have painted a floor before {using porch paint} and I am not crazy about that with the amount of traffic my downstairs would receive. Our boys are extra rough on floors. So I want to try staining but I don't want any chemical stuff. Thus I am trying the vinegar/iron. I heard it gives reddish brown results. I am looking forward to trying it. If it works out I might be applying it to the upstairs floors. But time will tell.

In the meantime we got to finally set up our new bed! In the nearly 13 years we have been married we never bought a bed. So we figured it was time to do so. It's a cast iron bed and the finish is an antique white. We both love it. Eventually we will get real mattresses instead of the air bed thats currently resting on it.

The doors have yet to be installed in the rooms. I didn't show the opposite wall of the master bedroom because it's full of tools, ect. There are also a few boards that need to go up in order to complete the wallboards. Hubby plans on working in the stairway this weekend. He plans on putting the wallboards up for the stair walls. We will be moving things in the boys room in preperation of getting work done in there. A lot of wallboards are needing to go up in that room. Plus we have to get the stairs finished so we can eventually go to final inspection. At this point we have no deadline except maybe...December. But hopefully we will have it done long before that.

We didn't end up doing much with the garden. *sigh* We did plant a few tomatoes and the broccoli plants we bought. So we will find out how they do. The boys discovered a 2nd mulberry tree so we have two on our property that we know of. Also the black raspberries are coming ripe so we are in the process of picking them. I LOVE black raspberries. I think they are way better than blackberries!

Well thats really about all the news I have to share for now. Hubby will be most delighted to finally see this post lol. He drops me a line from work every other day or so asking for an update on ridgetops hehe.