Build site, safety orientations, styrofoam walls & broken iPhones.

I Yesterday (Monday) was our first day out at the build site. We met Harry who is the site superintendent. He's a sweet, yet rugged Alaskan with a heart of gold. One thing I'm learning here is that Alaskans LOVE to talk! They are quite the chatty bunch and love to tell stories ;) Harry have us the most thorough safety talk I've EVER had at a HFH build. It pushed 2hours long! Luckily the trailer didn't have heat so the chill kept us all awake ;) 

The build site it big. They've already cometed about 8 homes. And they have provisional certificates of occupancy. In Alaska the winters are long and brutal so construction outside is often put off until the summer. With those 8 homes, the families were able to move in eventhough parts of their homes weren't yet painted. Alaska also requires that the yard be landscaped in order to get the certificate of occupancy.  I spent most of the day working with a crew on ICF. it's basically two styrofoam (2inches wide) pieces held together with plastic braces inside. They stack up like Lego blocks. Once they are stacked they fill it with concrete. They were done stacking so we worked to cut boards to secure at the open ends so that the concrete doesn't spill out the side. We spent the nail cutting boards, nailing and using the impact screwdriver to secure metal straps around the edges. 

A picture is worth a thousand words here. ;) after the job site we loaded back into the vans and headed off to the two local gyms that will be letting us use their showers. The gyms were REALLY nice... Pristine! 

We went back to the church and another volunteer had made us dinner, yum!! We all relaxed and played some board games (I managed to beat Joan and Cassandra at Rummikub! Yea!! 

Rise and shine at 6:10 this morning and off to the job site we went! We used my phone for GPS as we took the scenic route. When we got to the site, Brian have me back my phone and I went to close out the program... Dun dun dun... My clumsy fingers dropped the phone. Busted. 

I tried my best to be a good sport about it and laugh it off. Bummer. It's our navigation, my connection to all of you AND my camera. Luckily there is an Apple store in Anchorage!! I asked Joan if there was any way I could get dropped off there sometime this week. Within an hour she came over and said she needed to run an errand and I could get  dropped off at the store. I left the site around 10:30am. Joan dropped me off and I went into the mall. Luckily I have Apple care so it was only $50 to replace the phone. The bad news? I didn't have a credit card on me and only had $25 in my pocket (ok mom, this is where you get to run in the whole "you should always have cash on you."  I've got more money back at the church but didn't want to bring too much with me to the site. I started explaining to Agron and  Oscar (the two apple employees) that I was working with habitat, etc and could they use my credit card number that I know from scratch? No luck. Joan said she would let me use her credit card but that would mean waiting for her to run her errand and then come back to pay before they would even start the transfer to the new phone. Agron said he wasn't even sure if they'd have the phone in stock. Luckily they had ONE iPhone 5 for Verizon. Meanwhile I'm texting Amy my dilemma (through the broken glass). She remembers that she has an apple gift card somewhere. I run back up to the counter and sure enough, if they can see the gift card (email or texted) they can use that!  Gift card texted and we are in business! My hero!! While I was waiting for my phone to download Joan calls and says her credit card was declined at the store because the card thought it was fraud. She was frantically trying to call her bank. Meanwhile I just chummed it up with Oscar. He's from Barcelona Spain and moved here after meeting his wife while she was on vacation in Spain. Such a sweet guy!!! Joan calls again and asks if they have a connector for her iPad to be able to read camera SDHC memory cards. They sure do but it's $29. Gosh darn it! I have $25 and her credit card had been declined at the other store (where she is waiting for Cassandra) to drive out a different card. Oscar, my new pal, offers a suggestion. Buy it online, type in my credit card info (which I have memorized) and instead of having it delivered I should mark "pick up in store." Brilliant! I ordered it online, hung around talking to Oscar (they have to process the order and take the inventory from the back warehouse which takes about 20minites) and the twenty minutes later I walk out with a new phone and a lightening connector card reader. And today's lesson ladies and gentlemen is called "how to buy things when you have no credit cards or enough cash." 

Phew, that was a lot wasn't it? I'm off to bed now, remind me tomorrow to tell you about the stuck drill bit, tonight's BBQ and hallway yoga!