Update

Since the last post a lot has happened. On October 24 Gus turned 3. We had a party for him up north. He had a great birthday. We also got a new dead line to finish the cabin. I and now done and will be putting on the finishing touches this weekend. We will close on our loan the first Monday in December. The house looks so nice. I will be posting new pictures and a virtual tour of the house. I will also say that I am retiring from building for a couple of months. Coming up Anna's birthday is the 20th of November. We also will be going to Florida for our family vacation on the 21 of November and will be returning on the 28th of November. The boys are very excited. We will visit Disney world, Epcot, Sea world, Kennedy space center, coco beach, dream works for a magic show and dinner, and Cirque Du Soliel La Numba. Anyways we are looking forward to this trip. I will also post pictures of the trip when we return.

Cabin update

Ok, we now have a deadline to be done and closed on by the 13th of december. I have scheduled the carpet for the end of october. I sided the boat house most of the way. I wains coated and finished the lower staircase. I trimmed out both bedrooms and the main bathroom. I need to finish the tile work and grout. then I will start the hardwood in the loft and the main floor. It is all 3/4'' pre finished oak. There is a very nice contrast between the darker oak and the natural pine trim. Things are starting to come togeather. I finished the outside of the house, all that remains is the paint. My biggest challange that lies ahead is to build the costom oak steaircase up to the loft. I will post new picts soon.

Leo turns 10

October 7th was Leo's birthday. He is now 10 years old. Man how time flies. We got him some new mags for his bike. We are taking the boys up to brainerd this weekend to the holiday inn water park to celebrate Leo and Gus's birthdays. We also have to attend the weblos badge day for cub scouts on saterday up there so this will work out well. Gus's birthday is on the 24th of october so he will be 3 very soon. I will post a picture soon.

Chalet style home built by Jasen Grotte

We came up to a great surprise this weekend our deck was all built. What a great thing to see. Now the out side of the cabin is done with exception of caulking and painting. I plan on painting next spring. The stone is also done. I finished that work 3 weeks ago. I have started on interior finishes last weekend. I am gearing up to have the carpet installed. I finished the kids bedroom and almost finished the spare bedroom. I cut out the kitchen sink and set the laundry tub in the basement. Hopefully the carpet will be installed within the next couple of weeks. I am also going to side the boat house down by the lake and build a ramp on it for driving the mower in and out. We are getting very close to finishing this job. What a relief. At home I am hoping to finish the caulking and painting this week. I also need to finish the cedar shakes and seal them. So at the house the next step will be to add insulation to the attic and to put on the new roof. The roof might not happen until spring. Pictures to come tonight.

Vincent Baptised

Last Sunday we had Vincent baptised as St. Andrews catholic church in Elk River. He did great and didn't even cry when the Priest submersed him in the holy water. We had a party to follow and it was a great turn out. Picture to come soon

Congrats to the Pladson family ( Stan , Katie, Ford & Iris).
Katie my sister in law finally went into labor last week and gave birth to the first little girl. They named her Iris. She was a little sweetheart. Her big brother Ford is very excited to have a little sister now.

Back to school

Tuesday was Leo & Harry's first day of school. Leo is starting 4th grade and had a great day at school. He has a lot of his friends in his class this year. Harry is starting kindergarten and has Sister Karen for his teacher. He had a great first day and met a new friend but he doesn't know his name. Some of his class mates include some of Leo's friends little brothers & sisters. I think they are going to have a great school year.

Got stone

Ok I know I've been saying it for a while now but I finlay got up some of that stone. That stuff is alot of work. It sure dose look nice though. I hope to finish most of the upper portion this weekend. The deck should also be started some time this week. I hired a local guy to start on this job during the week so I could save a little work on myself. Man the summer goes fast when your this busy. We still hope to be finished by November just before our Flordia vacation.

We had to postpone Vincents baptism until Sept. 7 th after the 10:30 mass. We are having Katie, Maria, And Raksmey as the god parients. I hope to post some more news soon

What a weekend

We are home again and what a weekend. If anything could go wrong it

did on Friday and early Saturday. Friday afternoon we arrived in Talmoon ready to work. I drove to Marcel to Rent a auger attachment for my John Deere 250 skid steer. I needed this to drill the holes for our deck footings. This was supposed to speed up the process by saving me from hand digging these. When we started every thing was going great and me and Leo were drilling holes like mad dogs. When I got a little more then half done a boom & splat occur ed. One of the Hydraulic lines exploded and sprayed the front of the cabin with hydraulic fluid. What a mess. Now I lost all of the hydraulics on my machine so I couldn't even move the tractor plus I had to scrub down all of the cedar siding to get the fluid off of the house. Well I called the rental place and according to the rental agreement the renter is responsible for fixing any blown lines. Great I thought now what the @#$#@@@@! am I supposed to do. Well they told me the John Deere dealer in Grand Rapids could fix the part. So Saturday morning I cruised over to find that the idiot that was supposed to open the place never showed up so they weren't open. Now what was I to do. Well I went to just about every store in Grand Rapids until finally I found a hole in the wall place that could fix the part. THANK GOD!!! Now we have the part we need but by this time half of the day went by already. I also still remembered to get more hydraulic fluid. Well any ways we went back and I repaired the auger and then we actually finished the job. I have posted a small video clip of us drilling a hole. The rest of the weekend went very well. Me and the boys poured all of the concrete footings for the deck and actually had enough concrete. The next day Me and Leo just about finished the Hardy plank siding. Just a little more left to do. Hopefully by the end of August the siding, deck, and stone work will be complete. Other then this We also had some fun on the lake. Me Harry and Leo took out the boat for a midnight Cruz and went swimming out in the middle of the lake at night. this was pretty fun for all of us. We also did some skiing and knee boarding during the day time hours. All in all we ended the weekend on a good note. And look forward to havein next weekend off because Vincent is getting baptised at St. Andrews on Sunday.

Back home again

We have finally returned from our vacation. Man that went fast. We had allot of fun. I got allot of work done as well. I got to try out my new competition water ski and man was it nice. Anna learned how to pull me behind the boat. We also mad a trip up to Bemidgi for a scenic drive and dinner. One of the coolest things we did was made a trip to the lost 40. This is a chunk of land that was missed by the loggers in the 1800 and is now one of the only remaining virgin forests left in the state. The big pines ranged from 300 to 450 years old with trunks starting at 3 to even 4 feet in diameter. These things towered at least 150 to 180 feet in the air. Very cool indeed. We hiked the trail through these trees and couldn't believe that at one time the entire forest was once like this. The boys played in the sand and in the lake all week. Leo shot his BB gun a little. On the way back home we stoped in Baxter and ate Famous Daves and spent our last night at the Holiday Inn water park. The kids didn't know about this so they were very surprised. All in all it was a pretty productive week. I got up some stone, trimmed out all of the windows in the great room and kitchen, hung the doors, installed the washer & druer, finished all plumbing rough ins, had all of the decking delivered, did some more back filling and fixed my mower. We are heading up tonight to spend this weekend starting the deck and laying some mare stone.

Vacation

On Tuesday we will be on vacation for about a week. we will be spending time at the lake. I will be working hard on the cabin and spending time with Anna and the kids. Hopefully Anna will learn to ski this week. I hope to try out my new ski and show off to the kids. Show them that I'm not a old man yet. When we return I will have lots of pictures to share and will have updates on the progress that we made on the cabin. Last week end I installed the counter tops in the kitchen and bathroom. I started installing the tile back splash in the kitchen. I final graded the lot with the bobcat and made a dump run. So the weekend was productive.

Latest cabin pictures

Last weekend I applied the scratch coat so I can lay the stone this coming weekend. Holy cow is that a lot of work. Next weekend I Will also be final grading the lot to prepare for the wrap around deck. Once this work is complete we will land scape and pour some concrete for a driveway. We are trying to complete all of this work before it starts getting cold again. When your this close to Canada that isn't very far out. Here are some up to date pictures.

Gus gets his tonsils out

Today Gus had his tonsils taken out. Everything went great. He is a little soar but seems like he will do well. He is looking forward to all of the ice cream and pop sickles.

Here is a picture taken last weekend with Gus & his two big brothers holding their hammers. They like to help me build stuff.

New Cabin

I am at work and decided to take a 5 Minuit break. Don't tell Clark. Here is a picture of the outside of the cabin. I've been building this thing for a little over a year now. I hope to finish the project early in the fall. Seriously this was the biggest job I've ever done. When complete the cabin I plan on taking some time off from building for a little while.

opps

Today we were discharged from the hospital. Anna is doing great this was one of her best performances so far. The delivery went very fast thank God. She feels preaty good for just giving birth 2 days ago. Vincent seemed excited to see his new home. Thanks to my sister in law and mother and father in laws we came home to a very nice suprise. The whole house was cleaned from the bottom up. Thanks guys. Vincent will have some peace until Sunday when his brothers return from my parients cabin. Thanks Mom and Dad for taking those little monsters. Now that we are home I can return to my summer project. I have decided to replace most of the windows and to reside and paint the house. Since I havent been able to leave Anna to go up to the cabin I thought I'd better get our house fixed up before winter comes again. The house is very cold in the winter and I am tring to make the place a little greener and to add a little green in my pocket book. Hopefully this work should only take me another cupple of weeks to complete. Then it will be back up north to finish the cabin which by the way is coming along nicely. I will post some cabin pictures soon.

Just got home

Vincent video

Here is a small video clip of Vincent.

JAsen and Vincent

Here is a picture of me with my lateest son.

Vincent solo

Here is a picture of Vincent without his brothers.

Vincent Jasen Grotte

Vincent is the fourth addition to our family. He was born on July 10th 2008. He weighrd 8 pounds 2 ounces. Leo, Harry, and Gus were very excited to see him for the first time. Here is a picture of them togeather.