blood, sweat, & tears

no JOKE.... we {nate especially}put blood, sweat and tears into finishing our yard.... and it all paid off..... well, i think it will REALLY pay off when we have our first BBQ out back. we should have logged the amount of hours that he spent out there. it would probably be a rather appalling number!

it all started in may with the extension of our cement pad. while they were doing cement work on the houses being built around us we decided to take advantage of that and have them do ours. SO GLAD we did. gives us SO much more room for the BBQer.

 here are our little bugs's hand prints......

somehow i didn't take any pictures during the month and half that nate was working out on the sprinkler system. we had a guy come dig the trenches and after that..... it was ALL NATE {i helped some :)}.

the following pictures are taken the saturday before sod was delivered. we got 6 dump truck loads of top soil delivered. after 4 hours of 4 guys spreading dirt in front, and not getting super far, nate decided that we needed a bobcat to help spread the soil. that saturday he left the house at 6am to go pick it up and he walked in the garage door at about 11pm. it was a long day. i spent HOURS out there while kids played in the basement and napped trying to get the dirt level. it was so much work! i didn't workout that morning but i would LOVE to see how many calories we burnt! 

 nate went and got railroad ties to box in the garden & he used the bobcat to move some free gravel from the Ogden's!

 then on thursday august 9th, our world changed FOREVER :) there were quite a few people who showed up to help and it went pretty fast.

....the last few pieces

 and the next day~ TADA!!!!!!!!!!

sheesh! what a relief to have that DONE! nate commented that he didn't know what he was going to do once the yard was finished.... i tried to muffle my laugh..... BOY do i have a list!!!! i think i will give him a little time off  :)

he did such a GREAT JOB and i am BEYOND grateful for all the time and hard work that he put in! it would have cost an arm and leg to hire it out but i feel like nate sacrificed more then that doing it himself.... can't wait to walk on it and watch the kids playing on it!