Our oldest daughter and her husband moved into a new house in June. Their front yard was landscaped by the builder, but their back yard had to their backyard. We made a trip down earlier in the month to help get them started, and now we are hoping to make some more progress.
So this weekend, we made another trip down to help them tame their very steep back yard. They had a plan in mind of what they wanted, but as we started looking at it, we made some changes to the plan, and then we got started. The overall goal was to build steps from the lower patio up to the garage. We decided to bring the steps off the upper patio and then tie the upper patio and the lower patio together somehow.
We had to start by building a planter above the lower patio to raise the elevation.
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| Our daughter setting the timbers for the planter. |
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| Our son (in-law) cutting the rebar for the planter. |
Our daughter's former boss and now friend, Rob, came down to help them out.
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| Rob and our daughter setting timbers. |
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| Break time! The lower patio and start of the planter |
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| The planter is going in nicely. Now we're starting to figure out the path and steps |
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| Measure twice, cut once. |
While the boys were working up above on the path and stairs, our daughter and I were on dirt duty. The yard is so steep that we can't wheel the dirt up the hill, so we're moving it in five gallon buckets. Ugh!
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| When we started, the dirt was at the top of the retaining wall. |
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| The stairs are coming along nicely! |
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| We back-filled the planter using our five gallon buckets |
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| We ran conduit under the stairs in several places for drainage, and so they can add a zone to the sprinkler system later |
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| Done for the day! The planter is in, and we've started on the stairs. |
It took us almost the entire day on Saturday, just to build the planter. But we did make some progress up the hill as well. It is coming along SO nicely, and has so much character!
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| We have back-filled the bottom steps with dirt and gravel. Yay, we can finally walk on them! |
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| Making a jog over, so the stairs will come out right by the garage |
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| So much measuring, cutting and leveling! |
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| We also had to fill in around the new steps. So much dirt! |
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| Almost to the top, and almost done for the day! |
When Steve was in high school and college, he did flat-work concrete in the summers. Setting concrete forms was way to pay for a portion of his college. We never knew how handy those skills would be later in life, but they have definitely paid off on this project!
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| Is this cool, or what! |
It was a hard two days of work, but now it is time to go out and reward ourselves and relax!
Our kids belong to a wine club in Manitou Springs, so they wanted to take us to see it and enjoy some wine for all of our hard work. The winery is right behind this Creekside Restaurant on the main street in Manitou Springs.
D'Vine Wine is a really cute little winery with indoor and outdoor seating.
We each did a three sample tasting, and then shared a bottle of our favorite. They have some white wines, red wines, and their specialty is fruit wines. They also had a few dessert wines, which of course we had to try with our tasting. Steve and our son (in-law) tried the raspberry chocolate red and our daughter and I tried the Swiss almond chocolate red. They were both great!
It was a really comfortable place to hang out and enjoy some good wine, and the woman that was working that night was fun and very helpful. We enjoyed the wine a lot, but even more the the time we got to spend talking with our kids!
After our tasting, we headed a little ways down the street to a restaurant we have been wanting to try called Rudy's BBQ. It is very famous in Colorado Springs, but we didn't know anything about it.
As we stood in line to order, there were troughs of drinks and beer, which we didn't get, but later Steve checked, and a Coors Light was $3, so not bad! The food prices were also quite reasonable.
As we were standing at the counter, placing our order, we noticed their meat prep area in the back room. Wow, that's a lot of meat!
Rudy's is a big place with both indoor and outdoor seating, and garage doors that open up between the two areas.
Our order was a brisket sandwich, a pound of ribs, a pound of pulled pork, beans, creamed corn and cobbler for dessert. They also have a condiment bar, and all of the bread you want. It was well priced, and really good food!
If we went back, we would probably get the brisket, and definitely the creamed corn, but we would try something else instead of the beans. They were good, but not great. It's a casual restaurant, and a lot of fun! We'll definitely go back when we're in the mood for BBQ in Colorado Springs.
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| Now that's a bunch of food! |
There is also a gas station at Rudy's, which we thought was interesting, but maybe a fill-up and a bite to eat is a good combination.
We stayed one more night at the kids house, and when we awoke on Monday morning, we enjoyed a beautiful view of Pikes Peak as we enjoyed our coffee on their big, comfy couch.
When we finally headed back out to the yard, we decided to just finish up what we came to do. So we finished shoveling all of the dirt below the retaining wall, and carried it up above and spread it out.
The huge pile of dirt along the north fence is now gone, and nicely grated.
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| We filled in all around the steps with the dirt that was left over. |
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| All of the dirt is gone below the retaining wall, and it is all grated out. |
It was a big job, but well worth it. The kids can now use their steps all winter, and not have to worry about falling down their hill. The steps and retaining wall will also go a long way towards stopping the erosion that was happening. I'm sure we we ruined a perfectly good sledding hill, but hopefully they'll forgive us.
And next spring, it will look so pretty with flowers or something in their planter. It was a big, but fun project. We hope they love it!
