Trucks, Tiaras and Tutus: Patio Post

My husband may not bring me flowers or buy me little gifts. I don't mind really. I don't mind because he does things like building me a beautiful brick patio from scratch.

Let me tell you, the guy had no desire to put too much time and effort into our backyard at this house. He was happy with the large backyard for the kids to play in. However, I had some different ideas. I wanted a fence around the yard so it was safe for the kids to go out and play. I wanted a swing set for the kids to play on. And I wanted a nice back patio. We did the fence soon after moving in. It was a muddy, horrible mess. But we got it done with a lot of help from my mother in law and dad. Then, for Lily's 3rd birthday we got her a fancy swing set...that my darling husband put together by himself. The patio, however? I had to wait a long time for this one.

For me, when I imagined putting in a new patio, it went something like digging up a bit of dirt, lining up some bricks and calling it good. I had no idea what really went into a project of this magnitude, and doing it all ourselves.

For those of you who are like I was let me just say, it is not as I imagined it would be. We spent hours with a wheelbarrow and shovels moving dirt. Tom had to measure it out just right so that the patio would slope away from the house. We then drove stakes to the depth we wanted and then spend several more hours moving MORE. Dirt. After that we ordered 7 tons (yes, tons) of sand/gravelish stuff to haul back to the backyard one wheelbarrow at a time. (Thank you David, Niki and Ann). Then and only then were we able to lay the hundreds of bricks. And cut the hundreds of bricks to fit in our pattern. (Thanks Chris!) This project was hours and hours of hard labor and took a lot of thought too.

This patio is the reason I don't get too hung up on not getting flowers on my anniversary! (The patio, and the fence, and the swing set, and the millions of other projects Tom has done to improve our home.) Thanks Tom.