Right now, our front yard/flower bed looks nothing like it did when we bought the house.  The only two original items left out there are the Japanese weeping maple and a small pink azalea plant.  In place of the nasty boxwoods and ugly evergreen bushes I tore out of there (literally, tore with my hands) are some wonderful new plants and shrubberies all of which I cannot remember the names of, but that look really nice.  Christy picked them out and all I did was help plant some of them and spread mulch around.  It looks MUCH nicer now. =o)

The next project I am tackling is building a retaining wall in the back yard after which, we will lay down a new paver stone patio in the yard.  I got most of the stones I need for the wall but found out tonight I'm a few stones short.  So I'll have to stop at Home Depot again on the way home tomorrow to pick up about three more.  The idea is to build the retaining wall so we can level the part of the yard where we want the patio, and then lay the patio down.  Since our yard is essentially a downward slope away from the house, we have to level part of it otherwise the patio will eventually slide down the yard to the fence...and that won't be fun.  

We're also planning on building a small vegetable garden after the patio is finished.  We don't get a lot of sun in the back because we are so close to the tree line, but there should be just enough to get a small garden going.  We even have a bunch of herbs ready to plant, too!  Brae has his very own green bell pepper plant in a pot waiting to be planted.  Guess we should get moving on this garden thing....lol.  Speaking of other things to tackle in the yard,  I have to reroute the gutters and the sump pump drain down to the fence since currently they are both draining out into the middle of the yard creating a mud pit whenever it rains.  I also need to spray the dandelion killer to get rid of the small army of them in the yard and THEN put down some grass seed.  About 2/3 of our yard has grass and the other 1/3 is weeds and dirt.  Not too pleasing on the eye.  Christy's planted some ivy and something else that I can't remember at the moment down along the fecne line and once those start to take off and grass starts to sprout, we should be in good shape. 

I'm kind of excited about all these projects.  I mean, I don't like the idea of coming home from work only to do more work but I know that once it's all done, it will be really nice.  And then maybe we can take a short break before we tackle any other major projects and relax by the fire pit on the patio and have a few beers... =o)