Sometimes Demolition is a Beautiful Thing

In case anyone has been wondering what Dan's been up to in his spare time (there's so much of it, you know!)... this is it.

We hired a landscape architect to draw a plan for us in the spring and we're now in the second phase of our demolition. Doesn't it look great? Dan made a lot of progress on the demolition while his Dad was here. They pulled out the fence and basketball standard, the concrete surrounding it, and a LOT of bushes. Yesterday we continued the destruction. The kids helped pull out the curbing with a sledge hammer and pry bar.

The good 'ol pickup truck has been an essential tool in this process. It's amazing what a truck and a big strong chain can do. Not to mention a lot of backbreaking manual labor. It's amazing to look at the root ball on some of these shrubs. We're more sure than ever that our former homeowners paid someone a lot of money to design and install their yard in 1985 and then thought that was all that had to be done for 20 years.

We've apologized to all of our neighbors for the noise and ugliness and promised that things will soon be looking a lot better. To most I'm sure it looks horrible but to me me it looks great because it means that we're finally on the road to beautifying our yard and the exterior of our house. Hooray!