I'm really not sure why Christi continually lets me tear up our house, but I absolutely love it. After talking with a lot of landscaping companies early this year, we found out how ridiculously expensive it was going to be to have someone come in and professionally install a patio for us. Nothing real huge, only about 250 sq. ft. So, after many consults with my father on the phone and a lot of research online, one day we just decided to save some money and do it ourselves (maybe the motto of 2010 for us).

Unfortunately with the layout of our backyard, we have a gutter that is draining right into the spot where the patio needs to go. Since we can't have water running on it constantly, the first thing we had to do was dig a trench to bury our gutter. The plan was to have some people come over and help dig up the entire patio space (going down 8") with shovels, but after an hour or two working on my 25' trench, I realized how long that would take. And considering that we need to get this done before our party on the 4th, maybe the best thing we did was start with the trench to have us realize that we needed some extra help.

Eighteen inches. It's approximately the length from your wrist to your shoulder. It doesn't seem like that much. Doesn't seem like that much at all ... until you start digging. The top 3" or so is extremely easy, then the clay layer sets in and you start hitting rocks every other time you put the shovel in the ground. Most rocks were between golf ball and tennis ball size with one as big as one of Stan's toys he left in the backyard.

Realizing I would need my entire block to help dig if I wanted to get my base dug in a weekend, I went to my local power equipment store and rented a Toro Dingo for the weekend. That, compiled with the fact that I had five tons of gravel delivered yesterday, will create a very exciting weekend.

More pictures to come after we dig our hole and hopefully drop in the gravel layer. Sand and pavers are being delivered in less than a week, so we need to get a move on.