What Will We Call It Now?

I have to admit, we have affectionately referred to the Sunday School addition as the sandbox.


That name will soon not apply to what it is like.

This last weekend it sure did though. We moved ton after ton of sand into the project to bring it up to floor level.

During the evenings Bob Eremia is working on getting the plumbing laid beneath floor level so that we can pour concrete on Saturday.

Friday we will be doing our final preparations, and Saturday at 8:00 the concrete trucks are supposed to arrive!

Now We Are Above Ground

We started out with huge piles of concrete blocks scattered all over the project.

With over 20 people contributing in one way or another, and over 130 man-hours, you can actually see our Sunday School addition without having to look down in the hole!

We had 5 experienced brick layers who really helped us out! We are about 3/4 done with the block laying and hope to finish some evening this week. It all depends on the weather.

Once the block is all laid, the rough plumbing can be laid in and then we can start backfilling to get to our floor level.

If you can help on Friday, or Saturday we'd love to see you here. We will be easier to find as we come above ground level!

What a Weekend!

Friday A.M.: Lots and lots of re-bar. The forms are finished and ready to pour concrete!

Friday P.M.: A couple hundred energetic junior/senior high students. 1 very talented singer (Rachel Kurtz). Built and tore down a 16x12 foot stage. 3 on 3 soccer tournament (where the old guys made it to the championship round). 3 on 3 volleyball (where the old guys won the tournament). No sleep.

Saturday A.M.: 84,000 pounds of concrete!

Saturday P.M.: Finally some sleep.

Sunday A.M.: Education day. One very fun concert with Rachel Kurtz and Michael May.

Monday: Reflect back on a wild, fun, busy, productive, God-filled weekend!

We'll be working on the SS addition Monday evening, Tuesday evening, and all day on Friday and Saturday.

Preparing to Pour

The concrete forms are all built, thanks to the crew that was here on Labor Day.

Now we need to put a bunch of rebar in the trenches which will do two things: reinforce the footings and physically tie the footings to the block walls.

We will be working on setting all of the rebar on Friday starting at 7:00 a.m. and will work most of the day.

Saturday we will be pouring the concrete starting at 8:00 a.m.

If you can join us for either day, we'd love to see you here!

A Firm Foundation

Over the last two days we've been working on the foundation for our Sunday School addition.

After the excavator was finished we had a hole that needed to be brought back to footing level. Here's where we started.

That was achieved by bringing in a lot of sand in 8 inch increments. We would bring 8 inches of sand, level it out, compact it with a walk-behind compactor, thouroughly wet the sand, and repeat.

Once we brought our hole up to level we started setting forms for our footings. It takes some time, but we have about 3/4 of them laid out.

We will be having a company run density tests next week as well as working on getting the rest of the forms set. We are hoping to pour concrete on Saturday. We will be working at these times:

Monday, (Labor Day) morning 8-12

Friday, (9/8) 7 a.m.-???

Saturday, 9 a.m.-???

We need people to come on out and work with us! You don't have to be especially skilled, there are all kinds of jobs for people to do, some skilled and some not so skilled. We'd just love to have you there.

See you in the sandbox.