Front Yard Landscape

This is what our house looked like when we bought it last year. We have spent the whole summer working on re-landscaping the front yard and we are mostly done.

First, we started by adding a rock wall. There was a big slope in the flower bed and rocks were constantly falling down the slope so we(Ben) dug the dirt into two tiers and now there is a flat bottom section and then a top section. The kids were a great help in bringing rocks over to place in the wall.

We started by thinking we could move all of the rock out lay new weed barrier down, rip out the plants and then put the rock back on. We spent three days trying to deal with the rock and it is the WORST stuff to work with so in the end we hired a guy with a skid loader and dump truck to come haul all of the rock away. Then we bought mulch to use instead of rock and I love the mulch look much better.

Here is a close up of the finished rock wall and some of the plants. You can't see the plants really well and they are all very young. I can envision what it will look like in the future with mature plants, that is what I am excited about.




This is the view from the street. We added more walkway to the front door instead of the two foot path that hugged the house at a 90 degree turn. We still need to plant some trees on the side of the house and about 10-15 feet to the left of the current big tree. We will also remove the big tree that is right in front of our house. We plan on doing that next summer. I am so glad to have this much of the project done.

Georgetown to Idaho Springs Half Marathon

This past Saturday Ben and I ran the Georgetown to Idaho Springs Half Marathon. It was my second one and Ben's first. Of course he was faster then me even though I have been training longer and more frequently. It was a great race, much better then the one I did in June. The course had a few uphills but nothing too terrible. My friend, Michelle, ran with us and we all ran together until mile 7 then Ben took off. At mile 10 I was feeling really good and Michelle wasn't so I ran ahead of her. Ben finished in 2:04 and Michelle finished in 2:12, I would like to tell you what my time was but the official race report doesn't have my time. I am pretty upset about it. I emailed the race director and he is looking in to it, but I don't know if I will ever find out my time. I am guessing between 2:07 and 2:10, it would be nice to know for sure. We had a good time and Ben is already talking of running another one in November.

Our Neighborhood Geyser

Last week, I looked out our front window and noticed a lot of water running down the gutter. It was strange so I stepped outside to see where it was coming from. Four houses up the street and across the street, the road had buckled up and was spouting water about 1 foot in the air. The kids and I walked up to look at the little spring from the road. We walked back to our yard and immediately the road burst and a geyser of water began spraying in the air. We had our own Old Faithful. It was quite the scene, people came out from all over to see what was happening. The city was really slow in getting a water employee over and the geyser shot in the air for a full hour. When they finally shut the water off we lost our water for the evening but they had the whole thing fixed in about five hours.

The water was shooting up and over this house and their house flooded. They had some rocks along the side of their house and all of the rocks were washed to the back yard by the force of the water. I felt bad for them but I was also really glad it wasn't our house.

A Splash In the Fountain!

We went to a museum downtown and then ate lunch at the city park. When we were leaving we passed a large fountain with kids playing in the water. My kids really wanted to stop and play so I pulled over, they got soaking wet and had a blast!







After they were done playing they stripped down one at a time and I wrapped this blanket around everyone so we could get home and get some dry clothes.