Yards & Yards of Summer Fun!

(Okay I just spent an hour trying to get the words with the right photos and then ended up accidentally erasing a picture or two -How do you work this blog thing anyway?- so this will just be easier.)

It's been an all-summer-long project, but it finally looks like we might actually get it done! Hooray! Our 70 year old lawn was too lumpy for kids to play on safely any longer or to mow evenly. It was time! Each of our neighbors came over one by one to ask what in the world was going on after Jeff killed the grass. (It was brown for about 2 months before we finally tilled it up and I'm sure they were ready to volunteer to come water it FOR us if that's what needed to happen.)

We've been living with a slightly-gravelled driveway that is mostly mud for a major portion of the year, and decided we'd start there - AND the walkway between the driveway and the garage door which was in even worse condition. (I'm ashamed to admit that I have spent winters visiting the recycling dumpster every week to find new cardboard pieces to lay over the mud so our shoes don't get sucked off on our way into the house.)

We poured a concrete drive (complete with mandatory family handprints), and Jeff layed a lovely paver walkway over my mud and also constructed a cute curving paver pathway from the driveway to the front porch to make it easier for visitors to get to the front door!

Next we dug trenches and put in our very own sprinkler system! (It really was exciting to turn them on for the first time! In fact Jeff said, "I do this every day and I've never been excited about a sprinkler system like I am about this one! This is great!)

On Labor Day we built a curvy shrub bed and filled it (and the bed created between the house and the pathway to the porch) with pretty black mulch and lots of shrubs and perrenial plants/flowers. We're still on the lookout for a couple of small ornamental trees or plants to finish them off, , but we are in hopes that our summer-long project will be complete - including grass planted- this weekend!
It's a good thing too because, although we did have a Saturday here and there and a couple of holidays, most of the work has been done after work and long into the night (I'm sure the neighbors are grateful the flood lights are no longer keeping them awake.) and Jeff and I are ready for a long winter's nap.