Our backyard is done!

View of our yard this winter View of our deck Guys from the ward helping us rip out the deck

Concrete guys setting up the foundation for the new patio

Yikes! My lawn!

Our vegetable garden. We put in six blue berry bushes that will hopefully grow up and become a natural fence between us and our neighbor.

We added lots of flower beds around the new patio and planted seven trees

And we added a sidewalk back to the patio. We've actually had people walk up and knock on our back door instead of coming through the garage. It's nice because our garage is disgusting--people had to walk past the diaper pail

For the first time in our marriage we bought patio furniture! And we ended up getting a gazebo too because the mosquitos were eating me alive at night. We lower the screens and it's a fun place to play board/card games or have snacks--the bees can't get us either.

Some of the beds

It's taken all spring and summer, but our backyard is finally done! It looks completely different out there. The kids weren't playing in half of the backyard, so we replaced it with a large patio and garden. I felt bad about taking so much grass away from them, but they love it. They ride their bikes all around it and they play on the furniture. It's been fun eating dinners outside when the weather's nice. We've also had fun walking through the garden and eating stuff straight from the vine. Elyse checked for new blueberries every day and made sure they were passed out evenly between the five of us. Next year we work on the front yard: extending existing beds, planting more trees, and adding sidewalk from the front door down to the mailbox and street. I also want fruit trees for the backyard: peach, pear, and apple.