You read the title correctly. I may be horribly sunburned, but I am still pleased as punch right now. We’re done!* We’re telling people planning on coming out to help next weekend not to, because we’ll be deep-cleaning the house next weekend. No more patio! No more landscaping! No dirt, sand, gravel and/or stone! Life is good. We celebrated by catching up on Futurama and playing a lot of Mario Galaxy today.

Many thanks to Ashley, Steven Allred, Mary, Sean, David and Debbie for all your help! You  helped us bring this bad-boy of a summer to a close! Here’s the wrap-up:

Mary and Adam power-sawing.

More powertool fun!

Debbie and David weeded the triangle and dug the hole for our tree-planting part of the ceremony.

Mary and Ashley cleaned out our dead and dying tomatoes and planted coordinating annuals.

Ashley watering our pathetic excuse for a front garden bed, next to Roxelana (finally named the car!)

If you look closely you can see Adam, Mary, Ashley and Steven.

Planted some Northern Sea Oats (native reseeder/perennial), Sunpatiens  (annual), and creeping jenny (perennial creeper)

Earlier in the week, I got a free landscape architecture consultation of Pike’s Family Nurseries (yay for free specials) and we came up with a great plan of attack for the patio and garden terrace area. Unfortunately, because it’s so hot, a lot of the plants are not in stock and won’t be available for several weeks, so this is a pleasant stop-gap. I bought the Northern Oats, intending to transplant them next year, but I rather like the way they look, so we’ll see.

Full shot featuring Ripley.

Finished fire pit with garden stones laid out, but only partially sunk. (Thanks to Ashley for overseeing the design and sinking those that are sunk)

We even had time to pose for funny pictures.

We also hung extra outdoor lights in the patio, out out a bunch of mulch in garden areas, and put out grass-seed and fertilizer for frequently-driven-over and otherwise bare spots. And Mary did a trial-run of the cake, so we all got to eat delicious cake and discuss cake-decorating. It was awesome.

Until everyone went home and we noticed our AC unit was leaking. Again. I may or may not have mentioned it much, but there was a three-week window during this wedding-planning/construction phase where we had either unreliable AC or not AC at all. We’re not looking to repeat that experience.

Since our home warranty has finally expired, we took a poke at fixing it ourselves. We found a clog. It may or may not have been the putrified remains of a small underground animal. It wasn’t readily obvious, and we weren’t about to inspect it in detail. Long story short, it was actually a pretty quick fix and we felt pretty capable and accomplished at the end.

Workin’ on the AC

And that bring us to this evening. Grilling. ON. OUR. PATIO. The patio that is done. Pork. Barbecue sauce. Veggies in Hot Squeeze. Beer. And the our wedding cake for dessert. Life is good. Thanks to each and every one of you who helped us get here and kept us sane. We love you all.

*Done: Having finished or arrived at completion; a subjective condition and therefore a non-binding statement. Check back for further developments.