John's Cabin Crunch: How much do my friends rock? SO MUCH!

All right then, wow, this has been a big month! After it began to warm up and I made preparations, Andrew and Marcy joined me from Fairbanks, and I promptly put them to slave labor work! I picked them up on a Monday morning, and drove them around a rather smoggy Salt Lake City showing them bits and pieces of my past, old homes, more old homes, old places of work, etc. Then we went to Harbor Freight and picked up a few supplies, then went food shopping for the week, then to pick up a trailer from my cousin Jeff, then to Home Depot for 1000 pounds of OSB, THEN I took them to the cabin. They were understandably exhausted by then, so I figured a nap was in order. After we woke, I called off work for the rest of the day (with Mom's prodding) and we relaxed instead.
The Next Day, the real work started!
Putting up 4x8 foot panels of OSB on the ceiling alone would have been absolutely NO fun alone, but with the dynamic Mandrew duo helping, we managed to rock that job like nothing else. I had estimated 23 sheets for the ceiling, and it turned out I was 1 sheet shy, not bad if I say so myself, so while Marcy took the unenviable task of being the cutter, Andrew and I had the super easy job of lifting heavy and ungainly sheets of wood over our heads while handling a big ol' nail gun and attaching it to the trusses. Starting in my room, and moving to Kate's then Mom's we kept up the work, and forgive me if I meld some days together, but there were long days and I forget the order exactly.)
Before we could finish, we had to frame 2 new rooms out of what had originally been the area for my room. I have since claimed the largest room as my own. Mandrew went on a framing frenzy and after long hours and some strange angles, they presented me with a bit of an abridgment to my sister's room, and a whole new bunk bed room and what will be the upstairs bathroom. and lemme tell you, these guys are some of the hardest workers there are, and hey, building a house over the last year seems to have increased their construction skills to near godlike status among my group of friends. After framing, and another trip to Home Depot for more wood, it was time to finish the ceiling, which we did with not a little peril, while managing to avoid serious or even moderate injury.
On a very personal note, this achievement was much more emotional to me than you'd think, after 15 or 16 years of looking up into the rafters, all of the sudden, the bedrooms of my cabin have a definition that I think no one in my family has dreamed of until this point. And I thank my friends who made it possible.
After that, it was on to planing wood and cutting holes in the floor for the new bathroom, which, in a moment of fun, we discovered is actually larger by a foot than the bathroom below it, which meant my hole for the shower drain literally was half in the bathroom below, half in the hallway, oh well, should be easy enough to put a small box around the pipe, and no one'll notice without really looking for it. So we worked out the placement of the sink, toilet and shower, and assembled the most complicated bits so now all that remains is me running water up there and cutting into the septic line to give the pipe somewhere else to drain besides my crawlspace. I had to make ANOTHER trip to Home Depot that afternoon, and left the help at the cabin to try their hand at planing, and man! When I got back there was a virtual mountain of usable beautiful wall wood, that you would hardly believe used to be part of a massive chicken coop, and I chickenshit you not, we're using lots of salvaged wood for this cabin, which has its ups and downs.
So, there's 4 days down, and on Friday we rested, in that we went to lunch with my Dad then went to an Amusement park all day. We went to a Tibetan restaurant in the city, not far from where I used to live int he avenues, and my Dad treated us to a really frekin good lunch, and treated my friends to some glimpses of my past, including the story of my security blanket, which I think deserves to be retold here.

Bob Bolds has not always been 'Dad' to me, and I have not always been John T Bolds. Back when I was little, about 3-4, John Wilson-Pace went to a daycare called "Daycare by Daddy" run my Mr. Bob Bolds. Now John was still a little kid, and let's be fair, his real name is Bunch Wilson-Pace. So Bunch has a blanket, a very nice security blanket which he lovingly refers to as (And here I must point out, for those that know the Keltners, I had totally forgotten the name of my blanket until Dad told us again at lunch) "Newy". Well, Bob Bolds has his own methods of child rearing, and decides that there is one surefire way to ensure the eventual halt of Bunch's need for Newy.
It took a couple of weeks for Bunch's Mom to notice the change, but when she did, she seemed to think it was a good method as well. So, maybe not every day, but slowly and surely... Bob Bolds cut a slice away from poor Newy until literally, and Bunch knows this because he found the remains in 2001, there was nothing left but strips and a piece smaller than a washcloth, and whaddaya know, Bunch no longer used Newy as security.
And that's how my Dad handled that!

So after regaling Andrew and Marcy with this and other tales, we said our farewells and headed to Lagoon, Utah's own Amusement/Water park. And man, did we have fun! I took them first to the haunted house known as TERROR RIDE, and after waiting in line for a bit, and some technical problems with the ride, we went into the maw of this dark and gruesome ride...and totally laughed our asses of. This is not a scary ride people, but I talked it up real good:)
Then it was off to the big coasters, the Wild Mouse, the Colossus, and hey, no puking from anyone. Andrew and I made inappropriate comments and Marcy punched us for them, and we decided it was time for Lagoon-A Beach. We had to wait in line to get in, but not too long, and we got lockers, changed, sunscreened up, and had a blast! I think Andrew and I did every slide there was to do, and the 3 of us did all the inner tube slides there were. We also splashed Marcy a lot because she had some strange aversion to getting wet while floating down a fake river! Weirdo.
When we were done with water, it was time for dinner, we had packed a cooler full of food to avoid high-priced amusement park food, so we left that in out locker and bought high priced amusement park food, Mexican, pretty decent.
After loading up our guts, it was time to do see the old timey part of the park, which has been around since the early 1900's and look at an awesome train museum, introduce Andrew and Marcy to Churros, and have fun at others expense! There's a big river ride with big rafts called the Rattlesnake, and you can stand at the sides and pay a quarter a pop to spray people with water as they go by, and yes, you laugh every time.
So then it was onto the Midway games, Bumper cars, and arcade and finally the day was done, we all had a prize to take home, and we drove back to the cabin to fall exhaustedly asleep, me for like 3 hours, because the next day was coming, and man, it was a doozy!
I was up at 5 am so I could be at Home Depot by 6 am in Park City. I got there and picked up the Green Beast, the blow-in insulation machine, and 100 feet of hose, and then back to the Cabin to wake up my workers, for Saturday was Insulation Day!
Which sounds big, but once we got started, only took like 2 and a half hours, but man, we made some messes, but once again, all of the sudden, the cabin stays warm at night upstairs, which is good because it STILL gets to like 37 degrees every night up here!
So once that was done, I took the machine back and we chilled, working a little more on misc. stuff, and playing Settlers of Catan. And Alex showed up late that night.
Sadly, the next day was the day of Mandrew's flight to Portland, so the 4 of us went to the city. We dropped them off at the Terminal, and Alex and I went back to the cabin to welcome in yet another cool night, and talk Oil business, and discover the awesomeness that is Treehouses and specifically Martian coasters (long story, weird games)
Alex helped me develop an awesome system for putting up walls with the T&G, and we did some test walls, and then, alas, it was his time to leave as well, for he had 3600 miles to drive to get home to his kids and baby mama.

Thanks to my friends many hurdles were jumped, and a turning point was reached with my cabin, so without further ado, I'll give you pictures!

Post Blow-in Insulation relaxation