Hello everyone! We hope you're enjoying the site so far! I'm Ashley, and as Jason mentioned in an earlier post, it's time for some background on me too! I've lived in the Northwest for my entire life, and even more astonishing than that, I'm still living in the same house I was born in! So building a house is about as new an experience as I've ever had! I'm incredibly excited about the process, and I'm looking forward to designing our house the exact way we want it. I'm currently a student at Mount Royal College, taking an Applied Communications degree with a major in Public Relations. While attending school, I'm also working part time as an Administrative Assistant for our church, Country Hills Community Church, but I'm waiting for a call back about a new, better paying job to help pay the bills, and to help pay for all the extras we're looking at adding to our house!

Much like Jason, I'm the kind of person who prefers things to be brand new than used - an attitude I've grown in since purchasing a used vehicle nearly two years ago, and being somewhat disappointed. It's nice to know that we'll be the first and only people to have ever set foot in our house as owners. Something we're both looking forward to! However, before we can step into our finished home, there are many steps and seemingly infinite details that we need to tend to.

We took one of the major first steps just this past Monday, by choosing our exterior colours - a process which, although you might not think so, took a lot of time and careful consideration. We drove around nearby communities looking at homes, taking pictures of colour schemes we liked and were considering. Then we loaded the photos onto the computer off of Jason's digital camera, and scrolled through to see which ones jumped out at us. Our original plan was to go with an off-white or beige vinyl siding and burguny trim, fascia and aluminum, and when we saw homes with that colour scheme, we both really liked the way they looked. But, of course, something else that we liked came along and made our decision a little bit harder! In the end, we went with white siding and black trim - a very modern, clean and attractive look, and one that goes along with our plans for the interior. I won't get into those plans yet - we have to leave some things as surprises!

Once the builder approves the colour choices, everything is submitted to the city for a permit, and once that permit is obtained, that's when the first dirt will start to fly! We've been told to expect digging to start around the end of this month, and we're looking forward to it very much!