How Firm A Foundation...

Hey y'all I'm still alive, though this blog is looking pretty dead at the moment. At the moment, I am not going to try and catch you up on the past 10 days, as that would take longer than I have here to post. So in the interest of keeping this blog alive, I;m just talking about the past few days.
This week has been filled with hard work, dirt, and concrete but most importantly: Fun! We are preparing for RYM to bring us 160 kids next week. RYM is Reformed Youth Ministries, which is the High School version of RUF (Reformed University Fellowship), the PCA's (Presbyterian Church in America) college fellowship group. Normally RYM has their big conference in the summer, in Florida, at the beach (like RUF summer con.) but this year they are also sending kids here to the bay. They will work with us during the day and have their own program at night. It should be a really awesome time.
Anyway, to prepare for next week, we have been working feverishly to set the foundations and sub-floors of two new houses so that the RYM kids can help us put up the walls and roofs, and whatever else we can get done in five days. This is very reminiscent of the Blitz Build process we went through with Habitat for Humanity a few weeks ago, and has proven to be one of the most fun and quick ways to frame up a house. By the end of next week, there should be at least the skeleton of a house sitting where Tim and I installed batter boards and string lines on a patch of grass on Monday.
The house I have primarily been working on has come a long way as well. Since Monday, all the post holes have been dug, the posts set and leveled, and today we got all of the concrete poured. This foundation uses big 10"x10" posts, so the holes are 30" square and 3' deep. We had figured that with 21 posts (3 rows of 7) we would need around 20yrds of concrete, but we overcalculated and ended up only using 17yds. Unfortunately concrete can't be re-used once it is in the trucks for a day, so policy is you have to pay for all the concrete you order, even if you don't use it. So that was a bit of a let-down, but this was made up for by the fact that we had a great team helping us pour, and the drivers from Bayou Concrete were phenomenal. On the off chance that Eugene or Sheppard ever run across this blog, thanks a million guys^^ So until the concrete drys and settles, we are leaving that house alone, and concentrating our efforts on the other house for next week, one that is 8' off the ground, which means the posts are something like 5.5' in the ground(Ever tried leveling posts so high that you have to hold them in place with a forklift? No? Neither have I, but I've seen it done and been amazed^^) Well, I am really tired from today, and am going to go take a nap, because we are going to see "The Dark Knight" at midnight in Gulfport. Tomorrow morning will not be pretty unless I get a little shuteye!