In Which We Become A Demolition Team

Saturday, my parents came over around eight o'clock in the morning and we got started on demolishing my front yard.  I forgot to take a before picture, but the front lawn was mostly just clover and dandy lions.  When my parents came to the school for Grandparents' Day, they checked it out and my dad suggested we just start over.  Kurtis and I got into a fight about what needed to be done.  He wanted to hire a professional to come take care of it.  I was raised that if you can do it yourself, you should.  He thought we didn't know what we were doing, so we shouldn't.  I then asked if he was going to look into hiring a professional.  He said we couldn't afford it.  Did he look into it, though?  No.  So I said then we should let my parents (who offered to do this) come help us rototill the lawn under and plant seed.  I also told him that if he wasn't going to help, to just stay out of it.
So my mom, dad, and my brother Jeremy came and we got to work.  Heck, even Zach and Riley helped out.  They'll do anything to get out of doing their regular chores.  Kurtis helped when I asked for it, but let's face it.  It's cotton in the air season.  I'm talking so much cotton that it looks like it snowed.  And he is allergic to that junk.  So he could only take so much.
We pulled out the dead bushes that was growing into the siding of the house.  Kurtis and I had chopped it down to basically the roots earlier in April or in May.  Jeremy, my mom, Zach and I took out the rest.  And yes, it did take all of us to do it.
So much yard work got done!  I would like to send out a great big ginormous thank you to my mom, Jeremy, my dad, Kurtis, and the boys for helping me out with this giant project.  I could never have done it all by myself and they are the best!
I took pictures:

 My mom, Jeremy, and Zach digging out the bush.

 My dad working hard.  That thing is heavy.  He got most of the lawn done, but Jeremy had to take over near the end.  My mom estimated that it probably took 8 hours to do the first go around and then Jeremy did it again while Dad and I went to get some sprinklers (the ran over a few that were buried), and my mom said it took no time at all.  Our soil is very clay-like.  It's awful and made it difficult to level.

 And it's out!

 Now for the last one (there were three).

I haven't quite decided what I want to plant there just yet.  Maybe some hostas or bleeding hearts.  But those are not necessarily going to do well there.  We have a Southern facing home and not a lot of shade.  Something that can take the heat.

 The things you find when you dig up your lawn!

 The seed is planted and Zach and Jeremy had fun roping off the lawn.

So many neighbors asked what we did to it.  Like we were nuts or something.  I just said, "Well, you know.  Because it looked so good before."

I think my mom was praying that we would get it done in one day.  I know I was.  I was actually pretty surprised that we did.  But by seven o'clock, we were eating the tacos Kurtis made for us.