Ground Breaking Ceremony

Well, after a year of waiting, it finally happened.  The city got the water lines in and our builder finally gave the green light to get our house of dreams going! 

Before we got started; however, our wise builder, knowing how particular we are, thought we should have a site approval meeting to go over where the house would sit on our lot.  We agreed, and willingly hauled all of the kids up to our haven on the hill so we could pour over the staked-out site and make whatever decisions were necessary to get this project going.

While the kids played and Nick and I pondered, our builder watched from the sidelines, a smirk growing on his face.  Unbeknownst to us, our best friends the Andersons had spray painted a golden shovel and prompted him to carry out this site approval meeting in true Hoskins style.  Consequently, before too long, a backhoe loader arrived on site full of hard hats for the kids, yellow caution tape, and the fabulous golden shovel.  We donned the hats, posed for a few pictures,

and then I took the privilege of cutting the yellow tape and officially beginning what has since become fondly known as our very own ground breaking ceremony.

As you can see, the ground didn't break very easily when I attempted to take the first shovelful of dirt.  I proceeded to try for several minutes, with everyone looking on and peels of laughter ringing in my ears.

Finally, Nick took a shot at it, though it must be said that he really more just scooped a pile of dirt off of the surface rather than really trying to dig in as I did.

 Finally, the builder stopped laughing long enough to call over some of the subs to soften up a patch of ground so that we could get a convincing picture.   Then, Madison took the honor of officially digging up the first shovelful of dirt.

Each of the kids then took a turn, and then we let the backhoe loader take it from there!

We concluded the blessed event with mini Martinellis and more pictures.

I think when Pete and Jill prompted Chad to organize this event it was as more of a joke than anything.  We, however, in our cheesy Hoskins style, simply loved it!  This house has been a long time coming and we needed something like this to commemorate our official beginnings.

And so it is.  Now it is begun--and we are so excited to watch it go up over the coming weeks and months!