Insta-lawn!

Well... it's finally done! Brent and I finally have a backyard! The sprinklers went in last weekend, Which we decided was probably one of the most difficult things we've done on the house so far... It was so laborous! Our new friend, Adam, owns his own landscaping company, so he came over with all the materials and spent the entire weekend showing us the ropes. He has a pipe-puller, which is pretty neat, he hooks the pipes up to this big, mini-backhoe type thing, and it cuts a thin line deep into the ground while pulling the pipes along with it to wherever they needed to go. But the puller only worked so much... all the rest of the pipes had to be layed by hand, which meant digging trenches... lots of them. I have never used a shovel so much in my life. Not that i've never worked hard with a shovel... but this was different, we were digging through several layers of rock and clay. Our entire backyard is rock, lots of rock. We ended up having to use the pick-axe most of the time to work up the rocks and clay, then go back with the shovel and scoop it all out. We also had to battle the layers of plastic the previous owners had layed down over the entire yard, we won that battle and now have perfectly working sprinklers and drip-line! 

(Above) Working hard laying sod, it had to be set and adjusted just right to make the seams fit together perfectly, or else they wont grow together as well or fast. 

tugging on the sod to get it lined up and fit together

We have awesome neighbors who came over for the evening to help us out. They have all done their yards together, so we were very thankful to have their help and expertise!

Cutting and fitting the sod, it's amazing how fast it went with so many people helping!

We had a quad running up front and loading the sod onto every available inch, then bringing it back to us to roll out, we had a great system worked out! 

one half of the yard (known as zone 2 for our sprinkler system :o) with my little garden in the back ground, yay!