big saturday push

this was the "big saturday push".  we wanted to get the project done by the tuesday after saturday, because snow was expected, and we had to polysand before weather hit.  we had so many friends and neighbors show up to help us on this saturday, our "to do list" went down to just three things: finish walkway, finish cobblestone stairs, polysand both.  it was so exciting to see our list go down so quickly after so much help!

the kiddos helped me put the pea gravel in the cracks of the flagstone patio.  they really wanted to be such good helpers...i ended up going behind them and getting the pea gravel where it was supposed to go... 

david and the guys figuring out the stairs.  we thought we'd be able to get away with 3-4 stairs, but found the slope was much greater then we had originally thought.  so we ended up putting in triple that, i think.  that added another 2 day's work.

it stayed super warm during the day while we were working, but as soon as the sun went down, it got pretty cold.  i thought i'd be done with the pea gravel after just a few hours, but it actually took me all day.  (i had to break up my work by doing another home depot run for more cobblestones for the stairs).  pace discovered he could help me by bringing buckets of pea gravel to me down on the patio.  i'd fill up the wheelbarrow with the gravel, then he'd get a little scooper and fill up a bucket as much as he could handle, then brought it down to me.  he also independently discovered things ran much smoother if he had three buckets going at once--one i scooped from, one he'd drop off to me full of gravel, and exchange the one he just dropped off for the empty one i'd emptied into my bucket.  that kid is a worker!  he never stopped!

after putting the boys to bed we went back out.  david had the brilliant idea to bring out the huge flood lamps our contractor is using in the basement.  now we could really work until 10-11.