Backyard

We were hoping to get grass this past spring, but the backyard landscaping turned out to be a much bigger project than we thought. However, it has been so much fun to create things out of our giant dirt mud pit in the backyard. Nate has worked very very hard all summer getting our backyard put together. After having a landscaping company come out to quote us, we decided we could save a whole lot of money by doing it all ourselves. Nate's tractor would come in handy, and he was excited for a project to use his "toys" on. We ordered large stones and Nate maneuvered them with his tractor and tools and created stone steps to connect our upper patio to the lower patio. That was a huge project, but it turned out sooo neat! He even built a retaining wall and outlined our flowerbeds all the way around the house!! I never knew he could do things like that!! A talented man!

These are the stone steps that connect the upper patio to the lower patio.

This is the retaining wall in our flowerbeds.

Here's the full picture of the stone step & flowerbed project:

Then, we found a Rainbow swingset on Craigslist. We had been shopping around a little bit and found this one which is about 5 years old. It is made out of California redwood and is super sturdy, more than any other swingsets we've seen. Nate and some friends got it home in 3 giant pieces and they put it back together for the kids. We plan to stain it to brighten it up some since its pretty faded from the sun. We got mulch underneath it, and a rectangular outline around it. The next step: SOD!! We plan to do sod in the backyard between the patio and the swingset so that our yard is lush, thick, green grass to enjoy!! The rest of our land will just have grass seed and hopefully next spring we will have grass all around the house!! Can't wait!!