This was a fun day... got out to the river bar with the family to polish the shooting skills and gather rocks for the next phase of the concrete work. Followed that up with an afternoon of building at the property.

Yep, I can still put them where I want to. Shooting practice has hit the back burner over the last couple of months as I've been building the garage, so it was good to see that I haven't gotten too rusty. This was from ten yards with a Smith and Wesson Shield 9mm. Line up, draw, and fire 16 rounds as quickly as I can keep it on target, with a magazine change in the middle. This is about a 4-inch group... not too bad for a super-compact pistol. There's always room for improvement, but I'm happy with this for now. I also got to spend some time teaching my daughter to shoot with my 22 rifle... it felt like a perfect redneck Sunday.

This garage is a learning experience. You know the 14,000 steps I took yesterday, running from back to front to get the bolts through the forms? I could have cut that down quite a bit if I installed the bolts from the back side. That way, I can line them up with one hand and hammer them through the hole with the other hand. This last row of bolts went a whole lot quicker. I'll have to remember this when I'm building the rest of the retaining wall next summer.  

All of the form boards for the tall retaining wall are in place now. Moving 24-foot 2x8 boards into place gets a whole lot more serious when it's eight feet over my head. Now I just need to install the rest of the studs, tighten all of the bolts to align the forms, and I'm ready to pour concrete! 

Last shot of the inside before I close in the ends. The next time I see these, they're going to be a negative, cast in concrete.

Rocks from the river bar. These are going to be the outside finish on the short concrete walls. Shawna and the girls helped me pick these. I love that my family gets to be so closely involved in the building of our house. You can't buy this, and you can't hire someone else to do this for you... this part, building with my wife and kids and putting ourselves into our home, is the real payback from the time, effort, and money that we're putting into this project.