The yard

Our Weekends the last couple of weeks have been crazy!! Nate has been working on our yard so much! And it is finally getting to a poitn that you can start to see the progress which we both love!. The couple weekends we had a little while ago with the Horrible weather really put us behind but luckly the the weather has finally started to work with us a little bit! But lately Nate's been workin even on the weekends that haven't been so great!!

We have been waiting for this day for weeks!! The day we finally pour the Cement! Now that we have that done we can work on other things and continue to make progress!!

Thank you so much to all of those who came out and helped us get it all poured! For all of your hard work and muscles! Those wheelbarrows looked pretty heavy! Chris, Aaron, Brad, Korbin, Kristian, Jason and dad - we can't thank you enough! It would have taken us all day with out your help! Thank you also to all of those who let us borrow wheelbarrows and even for those who bought some for us to use!

Thanks to Nate for all his hard work and all the time and thought he as put into planning the layout of our front and back yard! When he came to me with his ideas I was so impressed that he came up whem them all by himself. I can't wait to see his ideas in real life once we get it all finished! I'll admit he's the one doing most of the work right now but he said once he gets the cement laid I will be able to start helping. I'm actually kind of excited! Thanks also to all of our family, for their help the last couple of weeks, especially Nicholas, Korbin, Bryan, Jason and my dad! We couldn't be as far as we are without your help! They've been over for a couple hours after work on some weeknights and all day Saturdays!! Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!!!!

The before of our yard - we decided we were going to rip up our "sod"! I say "sod" because the people who put it down used hydroseed and didn't lay down any sort of top soil. They pretty much put it on straight rock. No wonder it didn't take very well!





Step 1: Diging up sprinklers (I actually helped with this part)





Step 2: Ripping up the "sod" and leveling the dirt - yes even in the snow! Nate rented a little bobcat thing the first weekend in April and of course we woke up to a blizzard Saturday morning.







Our neighbor even used our snowblower



Despite the yucky cold weather the guys had a blast!! It was more of a toy than a tool!





Later that day when all the snow melted I couldn't even imagine letting Chloee outside. We had a muddy mess!!!









Of course we had to eventually!!






I took her right up to the tub for a bath and the second I put her in the water went Brown!!

Step 3: Pouring gravel - This step seemed to take quite a while and was a lot of hard work! For some crazy reason I guess I forgot to take pictures of this step but I guess I made up for it with all the other pictures I got!

Step 4: Pouring Cement!!! - This was the best step of all (in my opinion) We can finally start to see progress!!











Step 5: Stamping the Cement - Nate decided that he wanted to stamp our cement in the back yard. Thanks to the help of my dad and Korbin it actually turned out really well considering it was their first job! It almost looks purple now but in 26 days when we can spray it off Nate said it's supposed to be more of a gray/black color.













Step 6: Keeping Chloee out of the powder - The hard part now will be trying to keep Chloee off of the stamping for 26 days! The powder you use to stamp stains everything it touches. We may end up with a purple lab but we'll do our best! After seeing the mess Nate made in it I can't even imagine what Chloee will do with it!