How We Spend our Weekends. . .

In case you might be wondering why we have dropped off into blogger obscurity for about a month, we thought we would show you what we have been up to in our spare time for that past month or so.

This right here is our back yard with a little bit of modification. The area that is just dirt used to be covered by neglected, dead, nasty grey sod that never took root. We cleared the dead sod off and made it into a rough oval in preparation to. . .
. . . start putting in retaining wall stones for what is eventually going to be a paver stone patio. This was frustrating and a lot of work. We had to bury the stones at least one stone deep, then step them uphill while trying to keep everything level. It took some trial and error before we figured out how to give the stones a solid foundation while also keeping the ability to level them. The secret ingredient? Sand. Yeah, it doesn't sound dramatic, but Dan was ecstatic when he figured it out.
Once we had the retaining wall started, we had some dirt delivered. A lot of dirt. Tons of dirt. 15 tons of dirt, to be specific. In case you were wondering, this is what 15 tons of road-base looks like. When it got delivered and we realized that we needed to move it all by hand into the back yard with shovels and wheelbarrows, we very nearly cried. Nearly.
Here is a case in point. You can see the lovely retaining wall, which was 3 courses high at this point, and we started back filling the wall with the dirt and gravel. We have some awesome friends in the ward who helped us move the roughly 4000 wheelbarrow loads. The weird little yellow lawnmower thing is a Whacker, which compacts the soil.
Once we were done with the first section (yes, there was more than one section) this is what things looked like. It was a solid day of four adults working non-stop to get this much done. Whoever invented earth-moving equipment has a special place reserved for them in heaven.
The next step was laying the final courses of retaining wall stones, and then taking another weekend to move the rest of the dirt. This picture shows the final height of the patio. The main reason we wanted a patio is because the yard slopes so much, and because the lawn was dead already. Hopefully, once we are done, we will be able to get a lot of use out of our back yard, and be able to enjoy our wonderful Colorado weather.
Once the last load of dirt was dumped, everything was compacted and firmed up, and our three pallets of paver stones were delivered, we had another 4 tons of sand delivered. We spread the sand all over the compacted dirt and FINALLY started laying stones. Whew! It was a ton of work to get to this point, but it was sweet to see some real progress at last.
We laid stones all day long, starting at 9:00 am. One line after another, it slowly started to look like something. We really like how the pattern turned out. Putting the stones in place was a lot of team-work. Dana smoothed and leveled the sand, and Dan placed and leveled the stones. Once we had our rhythm down, it went fairly quickly. 
This is as far as we were able to get in one day of solid work. The sand on top helps to bind the stones in place. By the time we were done, both of us were physically exhausted. Our backs ached, our shoulders hurt, and we had both rubbed most of the skin off our hands. But it is going to totally be worth it once we put the hammocks out and enjoy living in the sunniest city in America.

So that is what we have been up to for the past four or five weekends. It is our first major project together, and has been a lot of work, but also a lot of fun. Once we get completely finished, you all are invited to come over for a Patio Dedication Party.