Our Backyard Pond and more

Sometime in mid-April Tyson decided to re-do the pond.  It turned out to be a WAY bigger project than anticipated.  He and his brother took it apart and re-did it once but I wasn't so fond of it, so we took it apart again and spent until mid-June trying to make it what we wanted it to be.  And of course it led into many other projects along the way.  At this point, we are done for the summer, although we aren't "Done", but we are exhausted!  Here's some before and after of it all:

The Pond Before:

 pretty much a big heaping pile of rock, and an itsy bitsy pond.

The Destruction - Round 1:

Never got a final picture of Round 1 - lets just say I did not like it, although it was better. 

So Round 2 - After:

Froggy has shown up and provided many many hours of catching entertainment for the kids.

And the Rest  - Before:

This is last year, late spring.  We had a lot of rock, and plenty of dead shrubs, and the worst part was NO stairs to get down off the deck!!!

During: Tyson and his brother actually built just a month after we moved in, but getting the whole deck restained and fixing all the curbing and landing at the bottom didn't happen until this year.

After...a year later:

Finally got the deck stained and everything else in place!

We dug a trench through our entire backyard and up this side of the house to help with the drainage off our house.  Replaced the drain pipe, covered it back up and rebuilt the rock pathway up the side of the house...all while we were rebuilding the pond and the garden planter boxes!  One project after another!

As part of the pond re-do project, Tyson also built these two garden boxes next to the pond, so we have some fresh tomatoes!

We never ever would have imagined how much work all that was going to be.  So much is not seen...moving sprinklers, moving curbing, digging out grass and trees stumps and bushes, moving pile after pile of rocks, redoing drip systems, handpicking each stone for the pond and cementing them in place, planting flowers and moss and trees and shrubs and the list goes on.  We are so glad it is done and we are finally enjoying our backyard!