Oh so tired

My new house is lovely.  I love it. Everything, except the backyard.  It is a gigantic mess, a third of an acre of disaster.  When we saw it we wanted to cry because we knew how much work it was going to be to get it looking half-way decent.  

Lucky for me, I have a handyman and he has finally regained his health.  From early in the morning until evening, he has been slaving, trying to fix our yard.  He has poured cement, pulled up curbing, dug up sprinkler line, leveled, measured, put in gravel & bark, relocated large boulders and flagstone rock, replanted several plants and trees, fertilized and mowed and edged and trimmed... well, you get the picture.  He is BACK! He is a crazy man when he has a project and I basically just have to move out of his way.  These pictures do not do the mess justice.  This is not even the before before pictures. These are the after before pictures so despite the mess, you must understand this is 10 billion times better than the yard when we moved in.  I can't even tell you the disgusting things we found while cleaning up--I felt as if I needed a haz-mat suit.  

Todd is half way thru this little flower bed which is outside the master bedroom and bath.  I can't wait until he is done with it.  I love quakies- I also have been informed they are junk trees, but I don't care and this one is right outside the bathroom window and I love to look out in the morning and see the leaves dancing in the ever-blowin wind..

This is a shot of our lovely lawn after the cement was poured. 

Love it.

It is also a shot of my sweet 5 year old who is playing without a shirt with his sled on a summer day.  Hmm.. weird... Notice also the sweat band around the top of his head. So full of style.

Holy hannah! See that tree to the left of the picture.. the big one.. Um, yeah, we transplanted that from another spot in the yard.  It had to be moved to make way for the gigantic cement pad my husband had to install for a basketball court.  So far, the tree is living. I can't believe it.  The root ball on it was about 8-9 feet across.  We had to have a fork lift to move it.

Todd installing the poles for his net which will keep basketballs from entering neighbor's backyard.

This is my wonderful father-in-law cutting down what we like to call 

"the monstrosity".

It was a huge outdoor fireplace with a trellis thingy.  

Only half finished.

We decided he half-finished it because he realized what a stupid thing he had done.  

We are cutting it down to bar height and going to install a solid surface countertop and in between the 2 countertops will be a fire pit.  I think it will be awesome when it is done.  

We now have a view of the rest of our stunning yard.

And the Oquirrh Mountain Temple.

Will you look at the corner of that flower bed by the tramp?

You could seriously hid a couple of dead bodies back there. 

America's Next Top Model looking fierce.

He is holding his subway bag that he got with his kid's meal yesterday.

He has decided that it will be his scripture bag.

So we will be attending church with this plastic subway bag and his scriptures safely perched inside.  As he removes them, everyone will get to smell that deli meat smell that so eloquently says, "Subway.. Eat Fresh".