On Our Way

We've been talking about changing our backyard for years, but hadn't gotten around to doing anything about it yet. My brother, Kevin works for Lifetime Products and promised us a great deal on a in-ground basketball hoop and shed. The only problem is getting it to California from Utah. My dad heads back once a year in his truck for his fishing trip and he was going again in June. We decided if we didn't get it then, we would have to wait another year. My dad brought them back to us the middle of June (thanks dad!) and the pestering from the kids began. The last week of June I finally started calling around to get some quotes for concrete and for the demolition of our rat trap, I mean shed. Quotes were obtained from four different contractors (which ranged in price by $1500). We ended up using our neighbor. I called a few companies just randomly out of the phone book. He asked me for my address to set up a time to come over and when I told him, he said, "I live a few houses down from you!" He was a nice guy and seemed to give us a fair price. I told him we'd like to use him on Thursday, June 30th and he told us he'd come by and have us sign the contract on Saturday morning. The kids and I started cleaning out the shed on Friday and Travis and I worked a little early Saturday morning. He had told me that they would most likely start on Monday so we thought we had all day Saturday to finish up and make a trip to the dump. When he came by on Saturday morning, he informed us that he was planning to knock down the shed and break up the existing concrete that day! We needed to get moving. Conner had an all-star game in Alameda that morning and we woke up the kids to come and help us since we only had about 45 minutes until we needed to leave for his game. We took off the fireman's pole from our play structure, moved our patio chairs, cleaned out behind the shed and finished emptying out the inside. We showered and got ready in about 8 minutes and headed out the door.

Conner's team won the game and when we came home we saw this! (This picture makes me realize how green my grass was and how dead it is now!)

The kids were kind of disappointed that they missed all the excitement!
What a mess!

All of our belongings from the shed, now on the patio. The joys of not having a garage!


Monday (July 4th) they came and loaded up all the concrete. Tuesday, they made three or four trips to the dump to take everything away. Tuesday night, he started grading the dirt. Wednesday and Thursday, they delivered the rock and he framed it. By Friday, they were almost done and ready to pour on Saturday morning. Saturday, July 9th we left at 5:00 am for our trip to Utah and hoped for the best as they poured the cement that day! We got a call about 1 PM saying it was all done and then later heard from my dad who went over to inspect it and finish paying him.

Needless to say, the kids were so excited to get home and set up the new hoop. Monday morning could not come fast enough. The kids and I started bright and early putting it together. There are a lot of pieces and pages and pages of instructions! We only had to re-do about 3 things that we had done wrong and only had one injury. (I got hit on the head by one of the poles .... OUCH!) About noon, I sent a SOS text to Uncle Drew for help. We were to the point that we really needed another adult. It took about 45 minutes for him to help us finish up and then it was time to mount it. It said that you needed three adults to put it up, but Drew assured me that the kids counted as one adult. Somehow we managed to get it over to the right place (with Andrew carrying more than his fair share of the weight!) and install it.

Parker and Conner could hardly wait to play!

Parker .... so excited!

Tuesday morning we started on assembling the shed. The kids and I worked about 7-8 hours total on Tuesday and Wednesday and made it pretty far. We had installed the floor, all the walls, the front gable and the doors all by ourselves. The next step was the roof and we needed 3 adults again. We decided to wait for Travis to help us finish up. Friday night, we put the roof and back gable on (what a pain!) and then Saturday morning we installed the sky light across the top of the whole roof and finished up all the finish work. It was a bit harder than we expected, but we finished it and it looks great. I got to climb up on the roof and give the people walking on the trail a show, Parker got hit on the head by a falling hammer as he was moving the ladder, and Conner got his fingers smashed quite a few times, but we ended up with no lasting injuries and lots of memories!

After we finished building the shed, we went to Sam's Club and bought some metal racks to store our crates on. We put two of those together and started moving things back into the shed.

Looks pretty good, huh?

Today is Tuesday and this is what I have left on my patio. I am VERY ANXIOUS to finish that up and get it all cleaned up. I've cut up more cardboard that I know what to do with, filled the garbage cans quite a few times, have taken paint, etc. to the Household Hazardous Waste Facility and have a load to take to DI. We have one more shelving unit to put together for the carport and a few odds and ends. Hopefully we can finish it all up on Saturday. I'm proud of all the hard work my kids put in last week helping us put it together. We got farther than I thought we would on our own!

Now, we just need to figure out what to do with the rest of the backyard! Hopefully it doesn't take us another 4-5 years to decide.