The Finished Project & an ER Trip

Remember the big yard project I had mentioned before?  Well, yesterday was the day we had set aside to do it!

Before

After 

Doesn't it look good?!  We are so happy with how it turned out.  This was our first big yard project together and we both had no idea what we were doing.  We spent a lot of time researching plants, shopping, sketching up designs, etc to get this all planned out.  This area is quite large so we had to do a big project to make it look proportioned.  

This house didn't have gutters when we bought it.  That resulted in rain practically making a mote up against the house.  We now have gutters, but had to lay a ton of dirt to level it out and a lot more dirt to raise it up from the house.  This way we'll avoid water sitting up against the house.  40 bags of dirt later and the first step was finally complete! Tony did this on Friday night while I chased Charlie all around.  He wanted to be eating, sitting and playing in everything.


 Friday night we had a bit of drama which resulted in Tony getting 2 1/2 hours of sleep and me getting the long stretch of 3 hours.  I'll write about that later.  Needless to say, we started our big day a bit differently than we had hoped, but it had to get done that day!

This project wouldn't have been possible without our old home teacher...he let us borrow his truck Friday and Saturday so we could haul everything we needed.  Not only that, but he came with 3 of his kids to help for a couple hours on Saturday.  We are overwhelmed with gratitude for them.  I thanked him for bringing his kids and he said, "I want my kids to know how to work."  They were all under the age of twelve, but helped dig holes, measure and played with Charlie so we could be busy.  It was a great parenting lesson for us to watch this dad teach his kids.

We spent weeks getting ready for this day:  40 bags of dirt, 42 bags of red rubber mulch, 3 bags of compost, 1 bag of lime pellets, 5 bags of sand, 12 small cobblestone blocks, 10 big cobblestone blocks, 4 mardi gras abelias, 3 knock out rosebushes, 3 japanese holly shrubs, 2 mums, 2 pots, garden fabric, 1 otto luyken english laurel, 1 dwarf burning bush... I do not want to be in a Lowe's or Garden Store any time soon!

Potted red mums that should blossom soon!

Mardi gras abelia--will remain green in the winter and flower spring-fall

 Back: Japanese holly shrubs-- will be green all year.

Front: Pink knockout rose bushes-- they will look like sticks in the winter

 Left: otto luyken english laurel-- will grow a couple feet wider and bloom white flowers in Spring.

Right: dwarf burning bush--will grow taller & wider, leaves change color all year.

At 8:30 PM we were finished. 

I'm so glad we did it!

Ok, so in short, here is what happened Friday night....Charlie woke up 3 times.  Each time he was coughing and scratchy, but the third time he was barely able to breathe.  We called the clinic and they suggested we take him in the the emergency room.  We got there at 10:50.  Waited 2 hours in the lobby.  Got checked in.  Waited 1 1/2 hours in our "room" which consisted of the hallway.  Luckily there was a random hospital bed sitting out so we had a place to sit.  X-rays.  Waited another 1 1/2 hours.  Doctor came, was extremely vague, said we waited so long because he "couldn't find us since we weren't in a room." Five hours later (3 AM) we left the hospital, feeling extremely confused, but happy his x-rays looked ok.  We were both very upset about the whole experience with the hospital.  Went home, got a couple hours of sleep before our yard project began.  Went to speak to a pharmacist about the drugs we were prescribed since we were questioning the doctor in the first place.  Pharmacist was wonderful, put Charlie's prescription on "critical" so we could get them asap.  He told us the doctor had prescribed a lethal amount of medicine for Charlie.  He figured everything out and got us what we needed.  We are so thankful for a good pharmacist!  Tony is going to the hospital next week to talk to someone about all of this. 

I'm happy to say Charlie is feeling better today!