Picnic with the electricians and plumber!

Well, sort of. Last night we had a picnic in our unfinished new house, eating amidst the messes the plumber and horde of electricians are making this week.

We had some unexpected "cool" weather in July, so we grabbed the chance for our first dinner with friends in our new house.

Alan has grown a bit obsessed with cleaning up after the contractors when they're not around. He's busy with the blower and shop vac, and the old-fashioned broom. And then the next day they come in and make a new mess...cutting holes and drilling things here and there...and he starts over again. But hey...I appreciate his work. Some men do contracting, and some men clean it up (and be an executive at Lizzie*Kate, Inc.!)

Everywhere you look there are new things...electrical boxes dotting the walls, and all sorts of interesting heating and air/plumbing things crawling all around/through the walls and ceilings.

We invited some of our long-time friends (not old friends, long-time friends) to meet us for pizza dinner in our new sunroom, overlooking the lake. It was a BYOB event...bring your own chair! One couple forgot their chairs, so they got to sit on a cooler and random wood scraps.

It looks like Alan and I took turns supervising the buffet line. 

It was a gorgeous evening to hang out with friends! Here was the view through our open sunroom windows. Hardly a ripple on the water...so rare to not have any wind in Kansas. 

After dinner, we "toured" the house and the recent progress. We talked and walked, and even toured a couple neighboring homes under construction and enjoyed the beautiful, blissfully cool weather.

Here's our nature pic of the week! It's not a good picture, but this is a bird's nest...inside a cardboard box...nailed to our wall. It turns out some barn swallows had made a nest in a bad spot under our eaves and it fell out. The contractors saw it and relocated it on a nearby wall. 

I didn't get a pic of the speedy little birds in flight, but they're going crazy hanging out in their new high-rise condo. Barn swallows are our friends, because they eat tons of bugs and insects. 

Welcome to our new house...little birds and adult friends!