Projects: Back Patio

We've been very busy trying to get a few projects done before the baby comes.

Our most recent project was the back patio.

My sweet husband spent a few days jack-hammering out the old back patio.

 My parents came down to help put the new one in.

My dad finished taking out the last little bit while my sweet husband was at work.

 Then they all had the fun job of loading the old cement into the dump trailer to take to the landfill.

Our brother-in-law helped with that part at one point but I forgot to take a picture.

 After three trips to the dump Wednesday morning our backyard looked like this:

 Also if you look close in the previous picture you will see where my dad started rototilling the dirt.

Then came round one of compacting the ground.

They started with a jumping jack we borrowed from a friend,

but after fixing a part and changing the oil, the oil cap busted and shot oil all over part of our house and my poor husband! So we rented a compacter, which we needed later anyways.

 Then came round one of fill dirt

 And several more rounds of dirt

 More compacting

 Compacting and leveling

Then finally it was time to start laying the pavers.

Our original plan was to pour cement, but after some discussion, we decided on pavers.

 Many hands make light work... 

 And here are many pictures to show our awesome helping hands!

 It went on like this for a while, they would lay out pavers for a few rows, then set them in place, and then start laying out more.

 I was banned from most of the work, but I was able to help sweep the sand that would help keep the pavers in place.

 They worked until it was pretty dark

 And started again the next morning pretty early.

This was Friday morning, Thursday night they had made quite a bit of progress.

 On Friday, they finished up the main area and then worked on cutting the little pieces to fit up against the house.

 All three days that they were working on the patio, I was great moral support and quality control.

This is how I spent most of my time, under the shade of the umbrella.

I felt a little bad I couldn't do more, but they were all really great about not giving me grief and actually they would have given me grief had I tried to help!

 After they finished laying all the pavers and the little pieces up against the house we swept more dirt all over it and then they compacted it again. They finished up around four Friday afternoon.

That night to celebrate we had our first BBQ on the new patio!

 It looks SO good!

Here is what it looks like from the back edge of the grass.

 We finished off the night with some campfire popcorn.

We are SO grateful for the help our family gave us! It was a lot of work and they worked very hard! We couldn't have done it without them!