manual labor day weekend

oh man am i sore! i finally finished the patio. my dad and i started it a few months ago, laying down about 1/2 of it. then i did the rest of it by myself. it's a lot of work, first prepping the ground, then putting down sand, then leveling it, then laying the bricks, then sweeping sand around the top of it to get in the cracks so nothing moves around. i know it's crazy, but i actually enjoy this kind of hard work. just drink lots of gatorade and strap on the i-pod and bust it out. it's like we have another room to the house now- it's 12' x 26'. we are out everyday playing on it and the boys can ride their bikes and play in the sprinkler. now all we have to do is put up the shade covering, which will have to wait a while until my dad gets back from europe. but the hard part is done. phew!
here is the area before we started. boring.

here i am working on it.

and the finished product.

we also went to a very special angels game. i'll have to post about that later. off to take more motrin....