dan takes on 8 cubic yards of concrete!

well well well, my older brother brother thinks a hornet's nest, coupled with a bird's nest, tripled with some petzl climbing gear will oust me from my coveted position as good son...  he apparently doesn't know how we roll down here in the countryside of Nephi!  (i was gonna title this post "bathroom fan takes on 8 cubic yards of concrete" but only grayg would have understood.  oh well)

so jess is always giving me a hard time about taking months and months to finish projects, maybe if she would buy me more tools (hint hint!) i could finish quicker.  anyway, so sometime last fall we decided to till up the yard and put in sprinklers.  see below.

our friend jamison, who has a heart three sizes bigger than normal, came over and tilled up our yard, he is also in the tractor selling business in case anybody is in the market. haha.  

our driveway used to be two lanes and when it rained or snowed you would step out of the car into mud, yeah not cool.  so during one of my ambitious moments i took out the lanes.  what a dumb idea!

then i took out the ugliest looking pine tree ever.  looked up a couple youtube how-to vids, borrowed a chainsaw (which i definitely need jess), and voila it came down just like i planned.  

so anyway, life happened and i got behind in my projects and all of a sudden we laid down big wooden boards on our dirt lawn as a makeshift walkway up to the house.  man we looked ghetto!  but it was getting cold and our hopes of getting a driveway poured were quenched.  sorry jess.  

then winter decided it didn't actually want to come this year so jess said "hey let's do cement" and what do ya know we made plans that day.  so we called our friend jeff, see how manly he is???  facial hair, sweet tractor-driving skills, going to the monster truck rally next month.  yeah he's awesome!

(pic stolen from dansie's blog...i don't actually follow jeff around and take pictures of him on tractors!)

and he has access to this sweet bobcat, so we hired him to help us city folk out and he helped us get everything ready.  well 8 days ago we had high hopes of pouring cement but then it snowed for the first time in about a month.  of all the days!  so then we prayed harder :) and planned on yesterday.  

our prayers were answered; it was a beautiful 70 degree, sunny, january 14th!

speaking of prayers, i am blessed to know that God answers prayers and i want to share a quote with you by gene r. cook, a leader in the lds church:

"i believe that in the whole history of the world God has never failed to answer a humble, sincere prayer - no matter who offered it, whether male or female, young or old, weak or strong, member or nonmember.  that's the way the lord is.  he is so kind.  he is so anxious to respond.  of course, his answer might have been 'no.'  or he might have said, 'yes, but not now.'  or he may have responded in a still, small voice that the person failed to hear.  but answer he did."

(receiving answers to our prayers, 1996, pg. 11)

i know God has time to listen to our prayers, let us speak with Him often.

so let's jump to the part with pictures!

 this is the morning of, around 9 am and everything is in order for the cement truck to arrive.  just ask jeff, i was sooooo nervous.  cement is something i don't have much experience with.  but we consider ourselves extremely blessed to have such good friends who live around us who have considerably more experience than us and were willing to help out.  a HUGE thanks to jeff, chris, kurt, kevin, kids, danielle, lynelle (for moral support and treats!) + especially jess.

the kiddos taking a well deserved donut break!

holy moly doesn't it look amazing???  we are so extremely happy with the finished product!  a huge thanks to everyone who helped out.  

the end.