The Work Continues

June 22, 2010: The concrete has now set.

June 22, 2010: Looking out of the "front" door through the archway.

June 22, 2010: The safe room is waiting for its steel door.

June 24, 2010: The inside walls are being put in place.

June 25, 2010: Looking at the sky through the ceiling.

June 25, 2010: Getting ready for the roof.

Pouring Our Concrete Home on June 18, 2010

The boom reaches to pour the concrete in all sections of the outside walls.

The concrete is guided in between the sides of the foam walls.

The concrete as it appears in the window frames.

Too much concrete was poured here and it had to ooze out somewhere- through a window frame.

Putting the finishing touches to the concrete ceiling of our safe room.

The concrete walls of our fortress are complete.

Ready to build our new home

March 2010: We staked out the property for the placement of our new house.

April 2010: The dirt was delivered for our foundation.

May 2010: Getting ready to pour the foundation.

May 2010: The foundation was poured.

June 4, 2010: The build block was delivered for our ICF (insulated concrete form) house. These are the styrofoam blocks that will be pieced together to build the outside walls and our safe room.

June 7, 2010: You can see the teeth of the block which snap together. The inside of the block is where the rebarbed wires will be laid horizontally and vertically and then the concrete will be poured between the styrofoam walls.

June 8, 2010: Building the walls of our house with the styrofoam blocks.

June 11, 2010: Building our safe room (which will be a concrete room) in the center of our house.

June 15, 2010: The walls are complete and ready for the concrete to be poured.

Five years ago, Hurricane Katrina helped clear the property.

In Jan. 2008, we cleared more trees from the property.

In April 2009, we built our barn which is our 2 car garage, storage area and our camper's home.

Just getting started

This is our first attempt at getting started with our own blog. So please be patient with us as we post information about our wonderful life.

Retirement for both of us began on May 21, 2010. We both retired from the Terrebonne Parish School Board in Houma, LA after 33 years of teaching.

We are now in the process of building a new home in Derby, MS. Derby is just off I-59 (Exit 19) and is 15 miles north of Picayune or 7 miles south of Poplarville.

We would like to share information about our new home, so we will post pictures and share some details.