Our 5-Year Labor of Love (or Something Like It)

We moved into our cute, little house as newlyweds on February 12th, 2003. It is now May 20th, 2008 and two children, hundreds and hundreds of hours later, our yard, (yes, I said yard!) is complete. Spell it out... C.O.M.P.L.E.T.E. Yeah!!! Now, that's not to say, eventually... maybe in another year or two... or three, we'll want to do something different, but for now, it's complete. And it's staying that way. You see... right from the start I always had a vision for how I wanted it and never being the content people Jake nor I are, we were always wanting to do more. We (or maybe more I) went so far as to hire an actual landscape architect to come out last year and draft up some plans. Well... after we reviewed her budget and examined it against our budget, we realized WE CAN DO THIS OURSELF FOR A LOT LESS!!! Now, that's not to say we even remotely came close to what she drew up for us, but she did light a fire under us to GET IT DONE. I still can't figure out how some can move straight into a new house and have the yard fully landscaped within the first six months to a year?! So, here we are... new deck, new trellis, new sprinkler system, actual flagstone path for us to walk on, a cute little stone patio underneath the girls' playhouse and a few handsome new trees taboot! I'd say I'm feeling pretty darn good about the whole thing. You see... after five long years of moaning and groaning about how pathetic our yard was... this is definitely something to be proud of!