Finally Landscaping!!!

So...this is the only BEFORE picture we have of our yard. It's hard to see, but the whole yard is all weeds and we've got a couple of gophers crawling around. I HATED how our yard looked, but we hadn't found time until now to try to landscape. John had his dad, brother, mom, and a couple of friends come over and get started this last week. Although not finished, it already looks a million times better!!!

Jaclyn got some time to hang out with Grandpa while the boys were working. She pretty much watched them in amazement the entire day!

The first task was chopping down the tree. John started with simply trimming branches, but was not happy with how it looked, so went to Home Depot and bought a chainsaw, deciding to just get rid of the tree and start from scratch; the roots were all raised up and in the way anyway, we were worried they might eventually grow under our driveway and start cracking it.

Jaclyn slept through all of the chainsaw noise as Daddy, Grandpa, and Mike worked hard to get rid of the tree. We're pretty sure she can sleep through anything now!

WOW! Look how different our front yard looks now! After the tree was cut down and the base of the trunk was pulled out of the ground, they pulled out the hedges that were in front of our house and roto-tilled the entire yard...

... unfortunately, the roots of the tree did not come out very easily.

They tried several methods to attempt to pull the roots out of the ground...

Here's Jaclyn watching as Brian, Mike, Uncle Jake, Grandpa, and Dad all try to figure out how to get rid of the roots.

Uncle Jake tried to cut them apart with a chainsaw, but that just burned up over a dozen blades...

...see the smoke?

So, this is the result of their last resort to pulling the roots out themselves. They decided to teather the roots to the back of the truck and pull them out that way. Unfortunately, while trying this, a pretty big piece of the roots broke off, flew over the truck, and then (because it was still attached to the rope which was attached to the truck) slingshot back towards the truck and busted the front windshield! We're just thankful no one got hurt!

Here's another angle of the damage.

After the windshield incident (as well as other smaller "issues") they decided they were done trying to pull the roots out themselves for the day. Here's a big piece of the base of the trunk that they did get pulled out.
We ended the day by finishing tilling and raking the yard. Next week, hopefully we'll be able to finish pulling the roots out (maybe Daddy will hire someone else to do it this time who has the propper equipment ;o)) and then lay some sod. I can't wait to see what the final product ends up looking like!!! Needless to say, for one day's work, I can't believe how much they accomplished! Daddy is lucky to have such wonderful friends and family to be willing to come over and be put to work like this!