Good morning, Ethan...

I thought I'd tell you about what I did yesterday. For the last year I have been building a house. My plan was that it would look like an Irish cottage nestled in our Tennessee forest:I wanted to make it passive solar and VERY energy efficient like the house I built for your Mommy in 1982 when we moved to Tulsa. I achieved both of these goals... when the sun was shining this winter, no additional heat was needed (most of the windows were on the south side with the appropriate overhang) and when supplemental heat was needed, all it took was another piece of wood in the Tempwood wood stove. I have been very pleased with how these things worked out like I planned.
I am still not completely finished with the house... I still need to finish the sheetrock on the inside, trim out the windows and stucco the exterior block/HardiPlank. With that in mind we (my experienced stucco helper and me) spent yesterday "smearing stucco" (surface bonding cement that was laced with fiberglass for added strength) on the east wall and the front of the house. Here are pictures of what we got finished yesterday:
East wall...Front wall...
It's going to rain today so the work has had to be postponed until tomorrow. That's actually good because I need to do some running around today and my shins need to heal from getting burned yesterday from the chemicals in the cement (I was wearing shorts which was not a good idea).
Here's a fun video produced by Honda. They had to do over 600 takes before the sequence worked like they planned... AMAZING:

I'll close for now... please know that I pray for you every day, Ethan and think about my BIG boy often!
I love you,
Granddaddy
PS. Call me sometime: 931-598-9160