Backyard Cement Work & other Yard Projects

We have Brett has been working hard on projects in the yard.
Back in August, Brett rented a Bobcat with an auger to dig holes in our yard. He (&Justice) dug holes for the Basketball light pole, the Flag pole, four Fort poles, a fireman pole, two Zipline poles and  three tree holes. Whew!

Next Brett bought, hauled, cut and installed Zipline Poles. They were BIG!! Glory helped dig out the extra dirt from the hole (with a little help from Dad & Grandpa Randy when they came to visit.)  The poles were in and Brett, Justice & Grandpa got the zipline wire across there and tightened as best they could. P.S. Plus all the kids helped dig up dirt from the other holes.

The girls did test runs. They love it!

Unfortunately, it sags too much in the middle for adults so Brett bought new poles. We dug up the other ones and reinstalled taller ones. Now we have lots of firewood and log seats for our firepit LOL

Next, Brett framed up all the holes in preparation for the cement work.

And Brian helped finish up cutting the hole out of one of the metal bases.

One morning, Brett ordered a cement truck to bring out the cement. Brian and Brett's ball buddy, CK, came over to help. They whipped through all the wholes pretty fast.
Back slab:

BBall light:

Flagpole:

Fort:

It started to rain after they had already smoothed stuff out so we had to go back and smooth stuff out again and cover everything. But pretty awesome to have that all done!

We still have a lot of work to do but it's awesome to get some things done!

Here's what our flag pole turned out like: I did later on fix the dirt around the flagpole. Go, me!

Whistle While You Work on Your Welding Table

Brett has been busy using his welder to make a welding table. It's one heavy duty thing! (I caught him whistling while he was working on it. LOL)
He paid Victoria to paint the legs for him. It's looking super cool!

Justice's Hideout Bed

When we moved into our house, Justice ended up with no bed. He had an idea of what he wanted but it required Brett & him to make it themselves. They wrote up a plan, bought the wood and then time got away from us. The last couple weeks, we have resurrected our vision. The kids & I have been doing a lot of painting lately.

(No pictures to show but...) Then Brett & Justice spent Saturday putting it all together. They have a couple missing pieces for a headboard and the protective side boards but it's sturdy and complete enough to use! Justice & I then put up some faux leather we'd bought a couple years ago to make his bed into a hidden fort.The whole bottom is open underneath. You have to get into the hideout by climbing in the end. We made it so it can roll up to reveal a small doorway underneath the support bar. Justice LOVES it!!!!

64 Nativities in our Home

I love decorating for the Holidays! It is so much work but it's so worth it to feel the spirit of each holiday. I was going to be a little more laid back this Christmas and only get out select things. But the little girls decided that we needed ALL our Nativities out. LOL They managed to find a place for almost all of them. (I still think we had about 5 others they didn't ever get out) They counted 64 of them!!!! They included anything that had a reference to baby Jesus. How special! I love that our Christmas was surrounded with reminders of the real reason we are celebrating!

We had other decorations as well which we love! The lights make it so magical. We love it! Merry Christmas everyone!

Our Holiday Room

After we finished up the food storage room, we moved to my Holiday Room. We drywalled, put up lights, put in a floor and hung doors. 

It's coming together nicely. Brett made me a little Christmas closet and hung some shelves.

I also have slowly been buying wire roller shelves. Liberty has been helping me put them together. It's taken quite a while but it's all put together. I know people get confused when I say my Holiday Room (they think storage) but as you can see- it's truly a magnificent Holiday Wonderland! I love it!

In other finishing news- my friend Heidi used to some fabric to cover the top of some furniture. I took her idea and updo-ed my craft table. I love it!!!

Backyard Grass & Blown out Sprinklers

Brett has worked really hard the last month to put in a sprinkling system and planting grass in our backyard. Our friend, Walt has been essentially helpful in planning and executing this humongous project. I spent more days than I want to count smoothing out and leveling the backyard as much as I could.
Finally, Brett & Walt spent one really long day trenching and laying pipe and hooking up sprinklers.

The moms and the kids filled in the trenches. Then I spent several days smoothing things out again.

Our family went out one night and compacted some of the trend lines. ;)

The next week, Brett rented a Hydro-seeder machine and sprayed grass seed in the rain. It made it so that the green color washed away. Unfortunately it looked like it there was no seed at all. I was super nervous that it wouldn't work but Brett said to be patient. We decided to take pictures every week to see the progress.

Week One (Sept 7th) Doesn't look like much

Week Two (Sept 14) Being patient is so hard!!

Week Three (Sept 20) Tiny patches are poking up all over

I put in a rubber edge near the back of the garage and planted some more seed.

Week Three & a Half (Sept 24) It seems to turn a little greener everyday!

Week Four (Sept 27) It's coming in really well except patchy in a few places.

Week Five & a half (Oct 9)
We had our Sprinkler System blown out for the Winter. We are a little nervous about the grass dying if the weather stays too warm but Walt thinks we're fine so.... goodbye to watering our cute little grass until next year!

6 More Truck Loads & Firepit Upgrade

This week, we brought in 2 more truck loads of rock and 4 more loads of dirt to keep working on our yard. Today (sat), we rented a Bobcat to move it all around.
We added rocks to our driveway to cover our drain pipe better and lengthened the driveway behind the garage. I didn't take any pictures of the rock job. Oops!
With the loads of dirt, we filled in the mote around the basketball court, added some dirt up by the house for our raspberry patch and spread the rest around the yard.
Dump Truck leaving a load:

Our piles o'dirt":

We all (except for Liberty who whimped out) got to run the Bobcat for a bit. Pretty cool!

Here's what it ended up like when we had to take the bobocat back. A bit if a bummer because we have so much work still. But I have to remind myself-- a little at a time, right? We need to level things out. Put in a sprinkling system. Add top soil. Then grass this baby! Someday, people, someday!

Then we decided with a bit of the rock we should upgrade our firepit area. So I moved the existing rocks, dug the whole bigger, arranged rocks around the edge and spread/filled it in a big circle to keep grass & weeds from growing close to the fire. Brett came and helped me at the end to spread some rock and move the stump seats back in place. It looks awesome!!!! We are so excited. You can see what it used to look like back HERE at Liberty's Bonfire. And her's what it looks like now. Somebody should pay us for our ideas. ;) LOL
As I got started:

All finished! How awesome is that?!:

The workers: (Liberty did help me a little at first)

Here's the end result. So happy! Who's up for S'mores?:

Seamons' Basketball Court

It has been a huge and expensive project that has taken several weeks but we officially now have a Seamons' basketball court in our yard! Here's the process we went through.

We debated for several weeks over where to put it. We measured, marked it with flags and moved them all a couple of times before we made a final decision.

While we got it excavated and leveled, we also brought in 6 truckloads of dirt to even out our backyard a bit.

Then it was time to find someone to do the concrete. We called several people and ended up going with the guys who did our basement floor. We were going to do a lot of the work ourselves and then have them just come back and pour the concrete. But we finally decided that it was too big of a project to experiment on so we let them do the whole thing. They first came and framed it up:

Next they brought in gravel for a base and leveled it out:

Here's a closeup of how they framed up the base for the hoop. We had a 4 foot hole to be filled with cement. 

Next they place Re-bar sheets all across the court.

Here's a closeup of the edge. We allowed for an extra 2 inches of concrete on all the edges.

Then came the Cement work.

First the poured the base for the basketball hoop. They stuck it 4 steel poles in the concrete and then placed a metal pad attached to 3 foot base screws onto the top. That hoop isn't going anywhere!!!

They worked in 4 separate sections. They would spray it down first and then pour in the cement. Then all the guys worked together to spread and smooth and level it out.
Corner 1:

Corner 2:

Corner 3:

Corner 4:

They came back later that day and used a machine (that little green thing on the left side of the court) to smooth out the top.

The next day they came and took off all the forms. Whoala! A Basketball court: {We still need to bring in a lot more dirt to slope up to the court but we shoveled a bunch of dirt up against it to cover the gravel areas after the form were off.} For now- it works!

The next week, Brian came and helped Brett & the kids put up the hoop.
{Side story about this hoop: About 12 years ago, Brett & Dixon found this killer deal on commercial grade hoops. It was "too good of a deal to pass up" so they both got one. We have lugged this HUGE, HEAVY bugger everywhere for the last 12 years and through 4 moves. The box has been falling apart the last couple years. I'm actually surprised that we still had all the pieces. But here it is and it's gorgeous!! Only problem is... that how the heck are we ever gonna find a matching one that we can afford for the other side???? LOL}

Justice and Brett figured out how to get the rim and net all hooked up. Then Brett made the final tweeks to the adjustment handle. It's pretty sweet!

We are pleasantly surprised but everyone LOVES it! They are out there all the time playing basketball games (like Lightning), roller blading, and riding their bikes. We're so excited! Good choice, Mom & Dad!!! Next up... Fort, Zipline or grass???? Decisions, decisions!