Saturday, March 26, 2011

The backyard....DAY 7

Wow....I guess I always hear, "It took longer than expected." But I was really hoping it wouldn't and here we are in day 7. They poured concrete and flattened out our dirt more, but now we are waiting again. Hopefully NEXT week it will be done. I'm reminding myself that it is a MAJOR blessing that we can get this done and I know the Lord is watching over it all no matter how long it takes!!

Happy Birthday Jude!

Here's my sweet Jude at 2 years old!! You can see why I call him SWEET!!!! He has always had the most beautiful smile and cutest laugh!!
Now at 7 and all boy I know he wouldn't want me to tell him he is sweet and cute, but a tough and cool boy! BUT seriously....look at this face!! What a fun 3 days we have had celebrating Jude!! Happy Birthday and our family is so blessed that Jesus sent you to US!!! I love you!!

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

The backyard....DAY 3,4, 5, & 6

On day three of the work in the backyard they finished taking the culverts out and dug out more of the ditch. They also had to drill to get the culverts off of the catch basins.


The guys worked on day 4 moving sand and dirt, but could do much because the guys delivering the culverts never showed. At least while they were there...This big truck showed up about 3:30 pm to deliver the culverts!
This was the only spot to put the culverts since there were trailers in our front yard and the backyard....well you know why they couldn't go there. Needless to say we had to park at the neighbors this night.


On the fifth day they got most of the culverts in and covered with dirt.


On the sixth day they put all, but a couple of feet of the culverts in and packed the dirt in. They flattened it all out and now we hardly have any grass :)
You can see all our toys shoved to the corner back of the yard while they worked today!

The other side of the fence had to come down today while they connected our culverts to the catch basin. We're getting closer!!!

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

The backyard....DAY 2

These first few pictures are actually from the first day....I forgot to upload them, but Adam really wanted me to take pictures of him out on the culverts.
Jude just wanted to be sure he could still get his daily dose of the trampoline!!!
Adam told me we need to have a party and invite all our friends over so they could see our "COOL" backyard!!

Now to start day 2!!! The guys got to work early pulling the culverts out!! I could even feel the ground shaking from inside the house as they pulled them out! I took the first few pictures from inside the house cause I didn't want to get in the way.





Our fence had to be taken apart because it's support was being rip out, so our backyard was available for all to see as they drove by. We brought lots of entertainment for our neighbors today!!




There was a catch basin here, but they guys had to bust it out! It was totally useless and actually sending water back into our yard...nice :)


All of this water was flowing UNDER our culverts making it's own path. Tomorrow they will have to pump this water out and make it flow a different way till they can get the new culverts in and make it go just throw the culverts. I'm glad someone else is doing this and know what they are doing cause the person who put these in DID NOT.
This is where we leave off today....





Tomorrow the plan is to get all the old culverts gone and get ready for the new culverts!

The backyard....DAY 1

This February after a pretty good rain Marc found this "HOLE" in our back yard! This first picture is not what it looked like when we first found it (The boards in the picture actually covered it at first). When we first looked down the hole we could see our culverts that were extended the whole length of your back yard that were "suppose to be" draining the water from our back yard (and neighbors yards).
As days and weeks and more rain went on the hole gradually got bigger...and bigger!
To make a really LONG story short the city, insurance, previous owners, and everyone else we asked would not cover any of it, but we were told it had to be taken care of or more holes would develop and work it's way to our house. The easy way out was to fill the hole and sell, but the easiest way was how we ended up with the house. We did NOT have peace about selling without being totally honest with buyers and that would probably lead to a loss in the sell of the house. The other option was to replace the old, bad, and useless culverts with new ones. Do it right and have peace weather we stayed in the house the rest of our lives or sold it the next day.
Well....with the Lords blessing and guidance we broke ground March 14th. Krimson is on the digger with a good friend from church as he started digging.

The morning started with lots of rain so once the culverts were revealed the workers left for the day letting it dry out. Here is Roscoe checking it out!!
One of the big CRACKS that was NOT helping...

Here you can see the water flowing UNDER the culvert. This was near where the hole was in the yard. Now you can see why...

A couple of tree's had to be dug up and removed so we could get to the culvert.








The next step is to remove the culverts....Many more pictures to come!