Grass In Arizona, Are You Nuts??

Hallelujah!!!!!

The Grass is in!!!

A very special thanks to Steve (Ian's Dad), Mark (Courtney's Dad) and Clint (Ian's Brother).

These three and Ian were able to get the entire yard sodded within three hours. It was by far the fastest transformation of our yard thus far. The hours of preparation really paid off when we were able to see the yard take shape. It really is amazing how much of a difference the yard looks. Also knowing that our yard is not that big, for some reason when the sod was all in it made it look bigger. This was a great weekend from a weather stand point as well. We have started to feel the temperatures drop a little bit and it will be nice to "winter" again. Hopefully we have seen the last of the 100+ degree days.

So this is how it all starts. 93 rolls 10 sq ft each. The grass came from Phoenix and was delivered in the middle of the night. The grass is cut the same day that it is delivered so that it has the least amount of shock. The delivery times are from 9pm to 9am. Courtney is up periodically during the night and morning so she was able to check on the delivery. She thinks that it was some time between 2 and 3am when it finally arrived. The guys started laying sod around 7:00 am or so.

Once we got started it was more than half way done before we even thought to take another picture. So here is the yard about 3/4 of the way done. It looks like a lot of standing around but really they are all just thinking about the next piece they are going to put down.

Can everyone guess who is bending over showing his best side??

And this is when it is all done. As you can see the sprinklers that were put in the weekend before actually do the job. It is almost like we knew what we were doing.

And her I am doing what I do best... being a dork!!!



And when it was all over the four of us could not help but celebrate, a little??? And for those of you wondering, yes it was 5 o'clock somewhere.

We are feeling a lot more relaxed about the yard but don't worry we are not done yet. We still have plans to plant two more trees, build a outdoor fireplace and barbecue. Oh yeah and we have to finish the sweet wall that we built. We almost have the baby room complete as well so we will have to get a final update on that. Four or five weeks and we should have our new addition at home with us. Hope everyone else is well, and we can not wait to share our home with our friends and family.

Baby Room

Almost forgot to post the baby room pictures that you all have been waiting so patiently for. We are not quite done yet but we are really close. Most of the furniture in the room you should be able to figure out but, in the center of the picture is a book shelve that Courtney's mom had when she was a little girl. Courtney then had it in her room, and now thanks to Tammy (Courtney's Mom) who refinished it to match the rest of the furniture, our first son or daughter will also be able to call it there own. It is hard to tell but the walls are painted light green and yellow.

Here is a close up of the baby's crib with the Bee bedding.

And here is a picture of Courtney and Ashley (our sister in-law). Both are due within a week or so of each other. There is nothing better than cousins growing up together. More soon!!

Sprinklers Anyone??

First of all a very special thank you to Mark (Courtney's dad) and Steve (Ian's dad) for all of their hard labors in our yard. Without these two there is no way this yard would have taken shape as quickly as it has.

We are done mulching but we are not done finding rocks. It seems every time we stick our shovels into the ground we find about 10 more rocks. This weekend we accomplished a lot by laying all of the pipe for the sprinklers. All toll we pieced together about 260 feet of PVC, yes Scott it was Schedule 40, and installed 7 sprinkler heads. Ian ran all of the electrical and then had the pleasure of seeing it all work. With a little bit of adjustment from the sprinkler heads we had things spraying just where we wanted them to. This is a big step in the yard because it means that we are ready to order the sod. Next weekend we are shooting to install 900 square feet of sod to put most of the yard to rest.

Below are a couple of pictures of what we did this weekend. You can click on the pictures to see them larger. Hope everyone has a blessed and productive week. MORE soon.

This is the junction where it all happens. The main line is at the top of the picture and there are three lines running off of that. These three are what will control what sprinklers will go on and when.

Here is the longest straight run of pipe. Do you think it stops at the large wall at the end???

Nope here is a picture from the other side of the wall. We drilled holes through it. It was a little bit extra work but well worth it.

This just shows how we wrapped the pipe around the patio. It turned out really nice!!

This is a picture of the same starting point all covered up. The tan boxes on the ground are irrigation boxes that cover up the valves we installed. It allows access to them without having to dig everything back up.

Just another angle of the finished product.
As you can see work does not stop until the sun goes down. And even then it continues.

Last Weekend

Okay so I did not post anything as of last weekend and I am really sorry about that. We did have an eventful time in the yard but there was not a whole lot of visual changes. We rented that monster of a tiller again to or course get more rocks out of the ground but also to till in the 21 bags of mulch we bought to prep the dirt for sod. It was another very hot day to be working in the yard but we keep telling ourselves that it will be worth it in the end.

After a little yard work Courtney, our two brother, and I went the the University of Arizona football game. They were playing a team called NAU which is from Flagstaff Az. This team is not in our conference but since it is a state school we feel it is important to show our support of them and really beat them into the ground. Well the out come of the game was to be expected but the real entertainment came from sitting in the stands. My brother has a thing of getting tickets near the visitor section, mostly because it is the first part of the stadium to be shaded but also because it is fun to see and hear the yelling and screaming between fans. And there was no shortage of yelling, not from us or course. Anyway there were a couple NAU fans specifically that were getting pretty hot, enough that it got the attention of a couple of the police officers monitoring the game. Well the police officers made their way up to these fans and kindly asked them to leave. One of them did not like that idea, which I am sure had nothing to do with all the beer he drank before he got to the game, and decided to push the police officer away. The police officer obviously did not like that idea and pulled the tazer gun from his belt and tazered the fan. I have never seen someone drop to the ground as fast as he did. Needless to say that got quite a reaction from the crowd. It was like there was not a football game even going on. So he and a few other were gracefully taken out of the stadium with a warm applause from the crowd.

The U of A won the game and our section was quite relaxed for the duration. All in all it was a good game and we got another glimpse of Cops hard at work.

We have more excitement planned for this weekend so I will update with progress as well we will get baby room pictures uploaded. All have a great rest of the week.

Okay The Great Wall Of Davis continues...

Here is the footer. Does that look nice or what??

So once the footer is in we are able to start laying block. And no we have not done this before.

Steve (Ian's Dad) has the most experience working with a jack hammer so we put him to work on clearing out some useless concrete. Now we will get the grass to grow near the patio. Thanks dad, keep up the good work.

Kathy (Ian's Mom) and Mark (again Courtney's dad) are laying block. This is the first row and the best place to learn what we are doing. We had the most experienced people in life working on this row because we figured that they could figure it out best. And boy did they!! Check out the next picture and see the result!!!

This is the first row. Kathy and Mark did such a good job of making the first row level we were able to brew some tea. If you look close you will see the jug of tea brewing about the middle of the wall. This is turning out better than we could have expected and it is all because some many people are willing to help. Thank you everyone.

Once we got the first row set the second went up quicker and easier. It is not to say that it was with less effort though. We had good motivation to finish this weekend because we find that the baby will be here in less than 6 weeks, and the baby really wants a grass filled yard.

Here is the crew, Mark, Ian and Steve, taking a break from work. If you can believe it we are not taking a break because we are tired, we are taking a break because it is raining to hard to keep going. So we figured it was a good time to see if the beer is still cold. Yup it is!! The best part of the break was that the rain dropped the temperature about 20 degrees. The work was a little easier after that.

The rain cleared and another day came. That day is Labor day. What better a day to finish the Great Wall of Davis. Below you will see the finished product. This is what we have been working towards for the last month. See the finished product. This is the wall, the Great Wall.

And here is Mark and Ian enjoying the finished product. Hard work has paid off. Of course we are not going to leave it like this but was by far the hardest most time consuming part. Stay tuned for baby room pictures and more landscaping.