Hard work!

Since Todd is finished with school for the semester, it is time to get to work on all those projects around the house that have been waiting for the summer! We untertook the big project of replacing and expanding our back deck. My brother and sister-in-law had recently redone their deck, and they volunteered to come up and help us with our deck. Personally, I think they must be nuts to volunteer for such hard work, but we were VERY THANKFUL for all of their help!!

The work begins with ripping up all the boards from the old deck. This sounds like an easy job, but it definitely was not!

Cathy is already hard at work! The kids were not able to help with this project....too many old rusty nails to deal with. But they did enjoy watching us work!

Clint brought a bunch of equipment and tools to help us out.

The job is almost complete.

Two great minds trying to decide the best way to put the addition onto the deck!

Cathy is Queen of the drill! She's ready to start putting new boards into place!

The addition is complete and we're ready to begin.

With 3 screwdrivers, it shouldn't take any time to screw all those new boards in place. Yeah, right....it still took forever. But just think of how long it would have taken me and Todd without the extra help!!

Work, work, and more work. We only stopped to eat!

Clint and Cathy are working past sundown. I think we finally called it quits around 10:30 pm. We didn't want to disturb the neighbors all night with the noise from the saw and drills!

After all the boards were finished, Todd got to saw the edges off. The work is almost complete!

Todd has a little bit more he wants to do to the deck, and of course, we'll have to stain it, but other than that it is finished. We've already been out enjoying it. Hopefully we'll get to have lots of cookouts and stuff over the summer!