With the help of some paid labor, a pump truck and another batch of concrete, Craig set the stem walls in the pouring rain (yep, love Seattle!) last Wednesday. I conveniently showed up when everything was done and treated Craig to the hamburger equivalent of the "Ol' 96er" and a Maritime Pale Ale down at Zak's burger joint.

This weekend, also mostly in the rain, we started to backfill the outside and under the house and began to work on the center beam that runs under the house (more on that later).

Craig gets the MVP award this week for getting up at 4:30am on Wednesday to finishing prepping the forms and getting half a days work in before working on our house. He also gets props for working pushing through his fatigue this weekend. He played double duty hanging out with the Michigan guys in town for the weekend into the wee hours and then getting up early to do manual labor all weekend! He even fit in a cat nap in quite a creative set-up...



Here's our first glimpse at the completed stem walls - not too shabby!