Working in our backyard...

Hey everybody! I've been a bit busy so I haven't posted much and I haven't been able to get to blogs like I'd like. We have been working in our backyard and patio area. It's been a long time since we gave it a good cleaning and the only landscaping we had back there was wall to wall grass. Literally. We have block walls that surround our property and with dogs and little kids I never thought it was a good idea to do any kind of landscaping until they got older (both the kids and dogs). Well, about two weeks ago we decided we were going to throw an 80th surprise bday party for my father and have it here. Well, since then we've been working, working, working and we've still got a long way to go. We planted some queen palms, filled in holes and topped with grass. We've got gardeners coming out tomorrow to level out the right half of our yard. According to the previous owners there used to be an above ground pool that stood there and it compacted the ground and made it very uneven. See where the slide is, you can just make out the "dip".
Here are some "before" shots...

Before...
north & west walls

north wall

West wall...

South & west walls
The first palm dear hubby planted...

Here's what we've done so far. You can see we moved the swing set to the south side of the yard. That swing set really keeps my youngest guys busy! I know it's not an "in your face" transformation, but keep in mind we've have TONS more to do. I'm going to be planting some geraniums at the base of each tree for some added color. Being that we are closely monitored when it comes to our water consumption, and can only water our lawns two days out of the week, our grass isn't nearly as nice/green as we used to have it.

Don't they seem to be asking
"What's going on?
What are you doing to our yard?"

We also had to wait for this little family to "fly" before we could begin work on our patio. This weekend we'll be power washing the patio cover & patio. Yay! Yes, that is a retro/vintage patio cover you see. My house was built in the early 50s and this patio cover "fits" with the age of my home. I go back and forth on whether or not I'd like to replace it, but the old aluminum just seems to belong here...Am I weird?