When we arrived at the site this morning, our first job was to raise the walls. Everyone lines up in order to spread out the weight of the wall.  

Once we raise the wall, it is necessary to hold it while other tasks can be completed.  These tasks include using supports to make sure that the walls are straight and nailing the base of the wall into the base board.  

One of the tasks that we needed to do was to check and make sure that the wall was level.  Here is Steff checking the level and Andrew peering over her shoulder.  

After we get the walls up, we have to check and make sure that all the nails are inserted properly.  This was rather hard at points because many of the nails were in high, or hard to reach places.  Thankfully, many of our helpers were ready to climb ladders and lean out windows or doors!  You can see Andrew working on the ladder and Ryan looking out the window.  

While we work, we also have a lot of fun with one another.  It's hard to pass up an excellent chance for a photo.  Steff and Chelsea lean out the window and pose for this one!

Here is Gary, one of our local volunteers, on a ladder trying to level out the wall.  We reached a point where we realized that there was a very large curve in the bottom 2x4 of the wall, so we needed to fix that with a sledge hammer and lots of man power.

You can see Brie and Ryan nailing the support into the baseboard in this picture.  This is done after making sure that the wall is level and it helps to ensure that the wall will not move after being raised.

Chelsea bangs a nail into the final wall.  Once this wall is up, then all four walls of the house will be complete!

In this picture, Steff, Lisa, Andrew, Kelsey, and others lift the bathtubs into the house before the walls are raised.  This is necessary because the tubs will not fit into the house once the walls are raised!

The day was really cloudy, so when the sun peeked out for a minute, we all took the chance to soak up the rays.  From the left, you can see Naiomi, Alyssa, Steff, Kelsey, Brianne, and Andrew enjoying the brief sunshine. 

Of course, any work environment is not any fun unless practical jokes are present.  In this picture, you can see that we have attached the Chalk Line to the belt of Ryan's pants.  It was a good five minutes and many puns later before he realized that he really was "the butt of the joke"!

We have to cut out the windows on the side of the house, and here is Steff with the Sawzall doing a fantastic job!  She was scared at first, but quickly overcame that because she knew she was cool enough.

After a long morning of work, we take a break for lunch.  You can see Steff, Kelsey, Naiomi, Chelsea, Kelsey, and Brianne leaning against the bathtubs in an effort to relax, at least just a little!

We had a lot of fun playing with water in sawdust at lunch.  When you mix water with sawdust, it forms tiny little balls that actually roll around.  Brianne was the best at getting the little balls to form and had a lot of fun playing with them and bouncing them into one another.

 Finally, we lift the last wall!  This was really excited, because you could see all four walls of the house raised.  Seeing all four of these walls really gave a great perspective of what the house would look like.

When we were fixing some of the nails, it was necessary to go to extremes.  Here is Lisa hanging out a window, swinging at a nail that was held by Andrew, who was also leaning out of the house.  He couldn't see the nail so Lisa really had to do a great job and not miss!

You can see that Lisa truly is fearless.  Here she is again, hanging out a window.  Brie hangs over the roof, and Emily and Ryan lean out the windows to supervise.

Sometimes, we don't want to use the ladders to get out of the house.  You can see that Ryan leans out, to be caught by Andrew and lowered to the ground.

Here is Steff, supported by Alyssa, as she leans backwards out the window in order to make sure that the nail goes in correctly.

Towards the end of the day, we must add the button nails to the moisture wrap on the house.  You can see that Steff is working hard, but that Alyssa has appeared to have fallen asleep!

Towards the end of the day, we have to work really hard to stay excited to hammer the nails into the boards.  However, Brianne works on and completes the job!

We still keep our excitement up as we reach the end of the day.  You can see Emily, Brianne, Ryan, and Alyssa and they work!

Today, we got to meet the entire family that would be living in the house!  You can see Amanda and Leslie, with their children Gavin, Aubrey, and Nathaniel!

Gavin and Aubrey were really excited about the large van and readily jumped in.  Emily, Steff, and Ryan sit in with them and explain how we all use it!

For dinner tonight, we got to attend the church's weekly supper.  We split up and got to mingle with the congregation.  This provided a really nice opportunity to meet some of the citizens of Pickens and talk with them!

We were also very lucky to have Amanda, Leslie, and their children attend the meal as well!  It was a great chance to get to meet the family all together and talk with the children!

Following the service, we were invited to attend some of the bible studies.  One of our options was "Life, the Universe, God, and Everything".  This was the final course in a five-week session, which provided us with a wonderful wrap up of everything they had previously touched on.