A backhoe, a jack hammer, a concrete saw and a wife!

My parents came down and took Annyson to the beach so we took advantage of that and started and finished the next project on our list.  We wanted to do this so it didn't look like there was ever a garage here.  Check it out!

We had a friend come and start cutting the concrete so Sam could bust it out.  

It's not photographed but Sam originally rented a backhoe to begin the tear out of the concrete.  However the backhoe wasn't big enough and for $150 for the day it wasn't worth keeping and Sam couldn't spend all day using a sledge hammer to his demise.  Naturally Sam got frustrated (to say the least) and took it back and came home with a jack hammer and a huge smile.  This did the trick!

He would do a section of the concrete and then that's where I came in handy.  I would pick up all the rocks of concrete and lift them to Sam to save his back.  We had a good system in place.

Not much for me to do at the moment

Yes, it was raining

Sam had to cut the curve in the concrete. 

It was quite muddy so I borrowed Sam's boots

 Finally, all the concrete was busted out and large pieces removed and we had this left over.  Sam used his tractor to get this all in a pile and he and Jay removed the rest of the debris out of this area.

Then we had dirt delivered.  I started to spread this by hand and quickly decided it would be much easier if Sam did it with the tractor so I waited for him to get home from work.

Voila!

  Time for flowers.  I am really no good at this part but I want to be - so I went flower shopping and I have a funny story of what happened while I was there!  I got 14 perennials for $59 and used a gift card for the sun patients.  Did you know there were sun patients?? Apparently they are new this season - they are impatients for full sun.  That was perfect for us!

The Funny Story - I was pulling in and getting Vann out of the car.  A big trailer truck was driving from behind the store and I could feel stares so I looked up at this man as if I was saying "Can I help you?".  He was making me feel quite uncomfortable with his stares (I don't know what he was looking at...I was in a big t-shirt and running shorts and hadn't showered in 2 days!!) and he wasnt watching where he was going and ran into the HUGE pile of pavers that Lowe's was selling!  I literally laughed at him and look at Vann and told him that things like this will happen to him if he makes girls feel uncomfortable.  He thanked me for the lesson.

Anyways, back to what I was saying...

The layout

Planted - yes, I dug all these holes myself.  

And the final product!

A close up

The hardest worker of us all :)

Next project --> pergola....materials delivered tomorrow or Monday!  This maternity leave is kinda growing on me....but our bank account says I need to get back to work so I quit spending the dough.  Hey - at least I'm still getting paid!