It’s been a crazy week but I finally have a chance to sit down and write. Right now we’re sitting down to a lunch of corn chowder and grilled cheese sandwiches. The dome has 22 more panels left to put on and the front and back extensions still need to be framed. The back is more complicated but it’s foundation is complete, while the front is easier to frame but has no foundation built yet.

Yesterday's video will be a short one. We took a break in the middle of the day to do laundry and shower. Monday’s video is only half there due to camera error. The video on Sunday is quite a bit larger then normal. Rather then snapping a new picture every 10 seconds, we upped it to every 5 seconds to have a smoother video. We posted the "quick" version (just the dome struts going up) as well as the full days video.

The skylights may be a problem for us. They are a little too big for the three of us to handle by ourselves and we don’t have a ladder long enough for one of them. We will probably leave them out this trip and get Jim Ashe to help us install them later. Since a full panel is installed and then the window opening is cut out from it the dome should remain mostly water tight. We'll just cut the opening when it's time to install them.

The foundation is 98% complete. When it gets a little hotter we’ll take a break from putting up the panels and finish up the various braces and strapping under there. The scaffolding needs to be returned on Thursday unless we want to pay for another week's rental. I may look into purchasing a cheap set since we'll need some over the next several weekends and again when we finish the inside.

*Update* It's now 4 hours later and there are 14 more panels left to go. We may attempt assembling the mini cupola (for the "roof" venting at the very top of the dome) before we get the last panels on so we have something to climb on to reach the top.

We have also framed three of the four riser wall openings (about 8' x 4'.) Since they are on the west side we'll wait for the morning before putting up the plywood sheathing on them. We also need to cover the top two feet of the foundation with plywood as well.

That's it for now. We can hear Mike's Mom and stepfather pulling up our driveway. They will be here helping for the remainder of the week and will come home with us to Seattle on Sunday.