Back Yard Renovations

I can barely move today. It's obviously been a looong time since I've done hard physical work! But first a couple of shots of the kids - they are so excited about Halloween. I think we'll be having a werewolf and Spiderman!

Superheroes chase bad guys on their dinosaur!

Cannot walk past Halloween stuff without trying it all on

And so back to the renovations. I love my back yard but the kids and dogs have destroyed it. Coco and Ben chase each other and they both dig holes and it's been depressing me for a while how bad to looks. Actually my main complaint is that when it's wet outside they traipse huge amount of mud into the house because there is so little grass cover. Sometimes I have time to wipe their paws and sometimes (i.e. mornings) I'm just too manic to do anything but watch as they come tear-arsing it into the house leaving muddy swaths of paw prints and clumps of sod with them. Remind me why I love dogs?

Before: Mud and small wobbly flags at back door

So on Saturday Craig built a boardwalk from the back door to the patio. It's now at the same level as the back door which is great but I freak out when I step outside and expect to step down. I can't believe he built it all in one day but he's been unbelievably sore the last two days. Could hardly move last night and I had to rub pain gel all over his legs and back!

On Sunday I laid sod and fixed up the borders next to the house. What a difference!

After: New boardwalk & sod

My new challenge is to stop the dogs digging in the turf. But I'll get to that right after I stop her peeing on our bed like she did again this morning. She's going to have to sleep in her crate at night - nothing else for it!