Our New Walkway!

Dave and I had a very exciting weekend last weekend. We spent all of last summer tearing down 40 or so 50-foot poplars and at the end of the summer we had Dave's brother, Nathan, use his excavator to tear out the stumps to most of these trees. Dave, in his perfect little world, also had Nathan tear out our walkway which headed straight from the side walk near the road to our front door because, as Dave says, "if you're going to do it, do it right. This walkway should go from the driveway to the front door, not straight to the other sidewalk. It's more appealing if we curve it to the driveway."

To which, I reply, "Really? Are you sure, you want to go to all this work just because a walkway should go from a driveway to the front door. Really? Another project, really?" Dave replies, "Yep!"

In our time together, I've learned that if Dave wants something done and it's really not a 10 on my list, it's not worth fighting it because he'll do all the work to get it done anyway, it just might be super annoying for me to wait for the task to be finished, but the end result is 99% of the time worth it and it makes Dave very happy! So...Nathan tore out the walkway and there we were, without a walkway, but a lot of dirt for a year. Ughh!

This is the old walkway before we removed it.

It was actually really fun to watch Nathan tear up the old walkway with the excavator.

Since Friday was the only day we could pour the concrete for the new walkway or various reasons, we were delayed week after week in June and July because of rain and holidays until finally Dave was able to put up the molds for the new walkway and porch last weekend.

We have fantastic friends who helped us; Tim Hair, Ty Bindrup, Bill Bindrup, and Mark Wood (not shown).

This is the curved walkway Dave has been dreaming of. He is so maticulous about his home projects that he even designed it's aesthetic curving on his drafting program for nights and nights and nights in preparation for the actual event.

To add to the pleasure of no walkway, we didn't water our lawn all last year either because we were planning on redoing the sprinkling system and therefore redoing the weeded horrible lawn, given the fact that so many trees had been pulled up that there wasn't much of a lawn anyway. So, that gave us no lawn, no sidewalk, and pretty much no dignity!

Ok, so ignoring all the other imperfections of our home; what a great thing to have a walkway! I am so happy and so are all of our visitors who no longer have to walk through muddy dirt or our unorganized garage. We are gradually making our way up in the homeowner world! Extremely slowely, but surely!

It's been a year, a very dirty, embarrassing, and "awkward for our visitors" year. And now, it's over. We've even gone out the last few nights to enjoy the cool summer air in the evening on our new porch. Of course, there are no railings and no grass, but there is a walkway!

In Relief Society this last Sunday, I almost jumped out of my seat when they asked if anyone had a good news moment to share because finally I had "good news" to share! I'll admit my overwhelming excitement must have been slightly strange to others as I shouted, "I have a walkway!"