Finished Patio!

Finally! It's time to put some pavers on the ground. I can't believe it. I was so excited to start, I didn't care if it was dark out. This is Monday night.

The pictures don't show much in the dark, here it is Tuesday morning. Since I got this, I asked Dr. C to fix my stove top. 3 of the burners don't light on their own. 

Because I have such a wonderful husband, he went ahead and fixed it. But of course just like always when we take apart something in this house, something it is connected to falls apart. He had to take out the igniter, but the screws were corroded and crumbled. Also, the burner part (of course I don't know what that is called) was all messed up (I also really don't know what was wrong with that.) He had to take apart the entire stove and spend an hour on the phone just order new parts. Since, the parts took a really, really long time to get here, this was my kitchen while we were laying pavers in the back. 

If you give a husband a job, he's going to have to take it apart... If he takes it apart, he will see something else is broke... When he tries to fix that, he will want to make it all like new...  

Tuesday night...

Wednesday...

Thursday afternoon...

Thursday, late afternoon...

Friday, Dr. C told me I would be cutting pavers so we can get the saw back and save money. Really? :-/ I thought I would be just laying the pavers and he can do all the cutting and get all his hands all rough and yucky. But, nope, he had to get stuff done and I had to cut.

Another view of Friday...

Mostly finished... I'm nervous about it being the right height once we pound it flat.

Aren't my cuts beautiful? I can't believe I was able to do it.

Another view. The step isn't done yet, but the main part is done.

Yay!! It worked, we pounded it down and it ended up being completely flush with the step.

Saturday. I'm so glad Dr. C was home to help again. Lots of cutting up here. He got to do most of it. I did just that little part in the front that you see.

There are a few imperfections that I know about, but over all we are happy with it. My hands and aching legs were not happy. But, now that I have recovered, I am happy. I squatted for almost every single one of those pavers!

All lit up at night.

Back yard... Finally!

I know, it's been a while since I've updated. There hasn't been much excitement since our vacation this summer, but I have a little itch to do some projects around here. Since, we have been here for 3 summers now and our patio has been this:

This is what it was when we moved in! So the above is quite an improvement. 

A lovely out door rug with some dirt.

At least we spruced it up with an umbrella and new chairs for our table.

FINALLY, we are working on putting in a real patio. We decided on pavers, but that requires a lot of digging for the kids and I since Dr. C can't do that part. (Shoulder surgery last March.)

There was a small concrete area that needed to be removed also. Can you tell how thrilled the kids are to help?

C doesn't mind too much, it's L that can't stand doing any physical work. She cries and claims injury every time she has to clean her room. She does, however, like to pose for a picture.

Then I got to do all the heavy lifting and dumping in the trailer for the dump.

Doing the work that way was quite a big job for us, so Dr. C decided to barrow this little handy tractor from his uncle. This makes the work go a bit faster.

And allows the kids time to spend the day in their jammies making origami things.

Hopefully in a month, I'll be able to show you the finished paver patio. That is if we can decide what color to use.