Dreams Come True! or The Longest Day of the Year- In more ways than one!

June 21st - The longest day of the year! Brent and Derek and David and Adam know this all to well after their curbing adventures yesterday! (And their wives know it too! Thank you Penny, Rachel and Brittany for sacrificing your husbands to the cause when I know you probably wanted to have your Saturday with them!)

The Project: Fulfill the Dreams of Tanya in putting concrete curbing around all of the flowerbeds in the back yard!

Cost: $1.55/linear foot and a lot of sweat, time, muscle, patience, thirst, fatigue, blisters, worn knuckles, wife-neglect, and extreme satisfaction and happiness when the job was done!
(versus $3/foot of hiring someone else do it. I'm still not sure what we would choose to do if we moved and decided to do it again!)

Time taken: 7:30am to 12:30am: 17 hours!+
- 3 hours to get the rental equipment all worked out and pick up more sand
- 1 hour figuring out how to work the machine
- 1 hour for lunch and planning with the Elders
- 11 hours of pouring and finishing edges and mixing concrete
- 1+ hour for clean up
- This not including the design planning time, pricing things out, and the 12+ hours of laying the design out, digging out the sod and leveling the ground that I did preparing for the project.

Ode to Men - Thank you so much for doing all of this hard work! I feel so grateful! I admit, I just couldn't have done it without you wonderful men who worked on this project. I am beginning to realize that men are so very important in building this world and making things nice and wonderful for their own families and so many others! We girls could just not do it without you and I want to give you all credit right here!

1. At the store, I could barely lift the portland cement bags in the truck and I was so thankful for the Lowe's men who loaded the truck for me.

2. At home, I could hardly unload the portland cement bags out of the truck and I was so grateful for our kind neighbors that helped me unload it.

3. When getting the sand from the landscaping company, I got the trailer jack-knifed in a dead-end spot and the kind man who worked there was kind enough to fix it for me and back the car out for me.

4. David was wonderful in picking up the curbing machine for us, loading the sand and keep things upbeat and working hard. We don't know what we would do without good brothers - and we are so grateful to have 12 great brothers! Also David's finishing work was incredible! He was very sorely missed after he had to leave! When I tried to do his job after he left and was getting frustrated because it didn't look right and my fingers were getting the skin rubbed off the knuckles from the concrete, I felt like crying - "David- come back!!!!!" He made it look so easy and did such a nice job, but when I tried, there are quite a few spots that I could just not get it to look right and I am grateful they are now permanent visual reminders etched in concrete to remind me how much we really appreciated David's great finishing skills! Thanks Penny for letting him come out and help us when I know you would have loved his help working on your own beautiful yard!

5. Derek was like a skilled energetic work horse! He never complained, never slowed down in his pleasant nature, and worked so hard for 11 hours straight! He was also the one doing all of the really hard work - Shoveling the sand into the mortar mixer, shoveling the sand out of the mortar mixer, pushing the wheelbarrow, shoveling the sand into the curber, helping smooth things out and then running (and I literally mean running!) back to shovel the next load. He has to be exhausted! Even when we took a small break when the missionaries came to visit with Brent, Derek did my dishes! I couldn't believe it! Wow Rachel! Thanks so much for sharing your husband for a day. We are so sorry it took us so long and we ruined your Saturday plans. Please forgive us - and I can not tell you enough how great of a hard worker Derek was and I know we couldn't have done it without him!

6. Adam thank you so much for coming when you did! Your fresh strength gave us "umph" to actually finish! And you took over for Derek before he passed out and gave up on ever helping the Orton's on another project again! You were a great mixer and a fast worker and those batches of concrete turned out perfectly! Thank you so much for sticking around and helping Brent to clean things up! Without you we would have given up! Thank you so much Brittany for encouraging Adam to stay and for your fun visit! My children who has been so neglected all day were so grateful to have see their wonderful friends Berkley and Brinley! And Ashers sweet little smile just brightened my day! Thank you so much for coming over!

Here are some of the photos of the project:










And last of all, my greatest appreciation and admiration goes to my wonderful husband Brent. He worked so hard! He endured my questions and "tips" and requests to change things with a smile and willingness to serve. He was bound and determined to make it look nice for me. He always says he wants to give me wings to fly, and he works so hard to help me complete all my dreams and schemes! Today was a gardening dream come true for me and I love you for working so hard to do it. You gave everything you could. I don't think I have ever seen you so tired, so worn out, and so dirty after a project. It was more impressive to me than running a marthon! Thank you my dear Brent. I love you with all of my heart. I want to be as supportive to you in your work as you are to me in my dreams. One of the sweetest things he said to me (Around 11pm) was something like "I won't stop until it's done the way you want." Thank you so much for not quitting me! I love you my dear, sweet, strong, enduring husband. I am forever grateful to have you! I don't know what I would ever do without you!


Thanks again to everyone! Thanks for reading this very long post! It was just a big project and I am so proud of all the hard work that went into it!