Backyard DONE!!

Upon moving into our home, the HOA informed us that we were in violation of a few codes involving our non-landscaped backyard and missing trees in the front. We were approved an extension to finish the backyard seeing as we had many projects inside the house that were our first priority (house was a foreclosure)- but I am happy to report it is finally done. Darrick had a little time on his hands this month and breezed right through this. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of the trenches dug for the shrubbery sprinkler system, but here it is covered up and what our backyard has roughly looked like since we moved in:

We have leveled out the ground and put down a sand layer under the pavement portion of the yard here:

The bricks/pavement work is completed but was scrubbed down with sand to fill in cracks, so it's hard to see the delicate work that went into the pattern we worked so diligently on from this view:

Next came the artificial turf which was a fun experience for us since we are not familiar with it at all. It was surprisingly easy to install. Here's a birds' eye view of part of the yard:

Here's a better glimpse of our paving work:

TA DA-

We did work one more day to install the shrubs/bushes/tree/landscaping rock, but it's such small areas that it's not worth getting a picture of. I'm sure it will look better when the plants have time to grow more as well.

And lastly, I wanted to inlude a picture of Madelyn trying her first jalepeno when we went out to eat with a friend passing through town that we knew in college, she didn't cry.

Okay, sorry, one more. We also finally bought a second car this month, so I get my van back to myself. We got a '01 Toyota Corolla that should meet Darrick's commuter needs perfectly.
And that concludes the posts for January. Hope you all have had a good start to the new year!