Project Yard-Renovation Complete!

A huge shout out to my dad who helped bring my landscaping vision to fruition!

We could not have done it without him.

We worked so hard all through April and May to get this all done.

I love the way it looks but I am so over weeding and planting and making decisions.  I tried shoveling dirt one evening (it's so hard when I want to dig in and get the work done but I can't and all I can do is nag people to do it for me), and Jeff walked out, saw me shoveling dirt, and scolded me.  I said I was fine, but I couldn't walk the next day.  I strained some ligaments in my abdomen (where I no longer have usable stomach muscles--blah!)  Jeff was right.  I hate when he's right.

This is where the fire pit was to be relocated.

This was a HUGE job.  My dad had to take a sledgehammer to the old fire pit.  Then Jeff and my boys had to carry the heavy stones over 2 or 3 at a time.  We had to rip out a bunch of curbing, dig up sod, re-plant a tree, haul in loads of sand, level it out and re-lay the stones.

This is where the fire pit used to be.  We had to take it all out because one corner of it completely settled about 10 inches.  We decided to move it to another corner of the yard and put the new swing set in this area.  Once again, this was a HUGE project.  My dad had the genius idea of stacking these redwood logs to make a giant play area.

This is what the front of my house looked like for a good two months.  

Bless my patient and tolerant neighbors!

Voila!

The finished design.

The new fire pit from the view of my patio.

(Don't you love the firefly lights I hung around my umbrella?)

We invited my dad over for the first tinfoil dinners and S'mores of the year.

Another view

Party at the Droubays!

 Yay!  The new swing set.

 The kids LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it.  They spend hours out there everyday.

The vegetable garden, and by vegetables I mean peas and tomatoes.

I know it's small but it's enough for us and pretty much all we can manage right now.

We planted several new trees, shrubs, and flowers.

This is along the back of the house.

Down one side.

My dad fixed the water feature and the landscape lighting. We also put some bushes and step stones in.

And I finally got a dang hose-roll-up-thinger. (What are they called?)  No more hose laying all around the yard.

Flowers

(Love Sam in this picture)

More flowers

A few new trees

(Sam again)

View from my porch

Even better view from my porch of my cute Lucy and her new beach cruiser that she got for her birthday.