How I spent Last week

LAst week I took two extra days off.  To get a project done while my "work crew"  (aka parents) were in town. 

When we bought the house last year we had noted that the front yard needed to be regraded as it sloped in towards the house (and there was a gap of a couple inches between the bottom of the front step and the ground).  So we replaced the front sidewalk with a bigger one made of paving bricks and put nice big flower beds in to replace the 2 foot wide ones under the eaves.

After day 1 of work

The raised section right at the step, also to show the brick pattern

After completion (almost).  The sides have now been filled with sod clumps, soil and grass seed.  Now we just have to decide what all we want to plane in the beds (perennials and shrubs)