Monday, June 29, 2009

Day 3

Matt woke up at 6:00 this morning to work on the patio, and let me tell you, he can be one determined guy. Matt's brother, Luke came down to help as well. The two worked so hard all afternoon in the hot sun.
Luke helped a little, he's not a big fan of loose dirt...I have to empty his shoes every five minutes. ARRHHH!


Luke filling his dump truck.
Loving the patio.
I asked Luke to put his hat on and this was the result.

Calling it a day.



Matt got a second wind after dinner and almost completed the patio, but he ran out of sand. He worked until about 8:30pm and with a few breaks here and there, I'm very proud of him. Although he may not be able to walk tomorrow!



Just one little section left and then the stairs. I'm so excited to have it finished. Joe, the brains of the operation, is coming down Wednesday to help Matt finish up. I think once all the stone is laid, the finished product won't be too far off.

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Patio Progress

There are a lot of pictures, so BEWARE! There are also many pictures of all the guys just standing around, but they really did work very hard. Thank you to everyone that helped this past weekend, I'm pretty sure I would probably be 50 by the time this project was complete without all of the help! We love you and we are so grateful to have so many wonderful friends and family. We owe you all.
The pavers came on this huge semi truck.....unfortunately Luke was asleep, he would have loved it.
Unloading

This was when we realized this was going to be a huge project. We were actually quite scared...too late to back out of now.
The backyard before....Matt already had ripped down the deck.
Side yard with all the ugliness.
Day One: Thank God for Matt's cousin Tim! He was able to come with his tractor, but I think he was secretly excited to be able to use it so much. He saved the boys A LOT of labor.
Digging out the grass.

Side yard path.
Luke was so excited to have a real tractor in his yard. Tim was quite impressive on it, he hauled 15 yards of gravel, 5 yards of sand and most of the pavers to the backyard. Could you imagine doing all that digging and transporting all the materials by wheelbarrow?


Spreading the gravel.

Compacting the gravel.
Day Two: Getting the game plan
I didn't get any pictures throughout the day, but here's what it looked like by the end of the day. Stairs from the front porch and the side yard path.

This is the outline of the stairs coming off the back door. This is one complete pattern completed, so now Matt will just have to complete the pattern many times.




There is still a lot of work to be done, apparently once all the pavers are in place they will have to cover them with sand, compact them all again to make them even, and finally seal the stone. I'll keep you posted with updates! Good luck Matt!! I told him I will help when Luke is sleeping.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Roseburg Visit

We headed down south to try Wild Life Safari again now that Luke is almost a year older....he still can't quite get over the fact that he gets to get out of his car seat and help drive and push buttons.
We did manage to get him to actually look at some animals this time. Here are some bears wrestling in a pond.
He loved the giraffe.
When Jacob comes over to play, I rarely see Luke.....just to feed him and put him to bed. Jacob is his idol.
Our son has a small obsession with sprinting down hills......he falls all the time, I'm not sure when he will learn his lesson.
Baseball.
He was very excited to play with this branch that fell from a tree.
Crazy Kristen
Happy Birthday/Father's Day Dad! My dad gets hosed with them so close every year.
Lego's
Stories with Great Grandma
"Can you believe my hero is reading to me?"

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Kristen's 25

The Fam and Kristen's friends went to a dinner in Portland to celebrate her birthday!
Knuckles with my Aunt
Kristen and Tony
Mike and John
Luke trying to pretend he wasn't a pill that evening, looks can be very deceiving!
Hanging with Grandpa.
Kristen's Posse