Our Memorial Day weekend (and efforts made in recent weeks)

Yard work has been our answer to every question about our plans or our thoughts in the recent weeks.
Here's a pic from the east side of the back yard last fall. Lush ivy on fence, lots of lawn, edge rimmed with river rock.
We had a desire to expand our vegetable garden opportunities and came up with a plan to change this area (the winter was really hard on that ivy, but it's growing back). We started by removing a lot of the river rock and sod.Cam carefully leveled out areas for gardening boxes......and then began building them.WOW!When it came time to fill the boxes, we got the kids involved in mixing up the soil.Dane planned out where the 44 veggie plants should be placed. Bryce and I planted them all, some of them while it rained. We also planted two peach trees (on the right). Although we're not finished yet, we're so excited about the progress than has been made. So much hard work!
I didn't help a lot because I've been working on the west side of the yard.
Just over the edge of our deck was a lawn that wouldn't grow. Too much shade, spindly little blades of grass...Last fall we had a cement patio poured.On May 16th, I began building a retaining wall out of river bed rock.
This is only a fourth of the rock delivered to our house.

The work is basically a little bit puzzle and a little bit Lego and a lot of chiseling.

The progress is mostly slow, but every now and again a whole bunch of rocks will align perfectly together, one right after another. Believe me, it's such a blessing when that happens. It's a bit taller now than pictured and I have to add one more foot worth of height over a 15 foot stretch, but when this thing is finally finished, I think I'm really going to proud of what I've accomplished. More pictures to come, when we're all finished!