Truck to haul it all away

Tuesday evening Betsy rented a 4x4 Truck to haul all the dirt away from what we have dug up for our "soon to be" patio.  We were so blessed to have the help of our neighbors Mike and Nick on Tuesday night.  Mike saw me shoveling dirt into the back of the pick up and came over to help.  Then Mark came home and Nick came over to help.  The four of us shoveled dirt from the drive way into the back of the truck.

We filled it to the brim before Mark, Nick and Mike drove up the the vacant lot near the YMCA to dump it.  It takes about 50 minutes to unload the truck with three people.  They came back and we filled it up again.  This time Robert got home so he went with the boys to unload - it went much faster (40 minutes).

After the second load Mike and Nick went home - the work was exhausting - but Mark, Betsy and Robert continued shoveling dirt into the pick up truck for another 35 minutes.   At 8:20 a storm came in - lightning and thunder!  Mark continued to work even in the storm.  Betsy said, "He's going to get hit by lightning."  … but he didn't.  She and Robert left at 8:30 to meet Spencer for frozen yogurt.

Wednesday Morning:  Betsy and Mark tell Devon to drive safely to XC, but within minutes we hear a "ckxk" from the driveway.  Devon accidentally backed the Corolla into the truck.  YIKES!  We sent Devon on his way to XC, and went back to bed.  (We were exhausted from yesterday's work).  When we got up we saw that Devon caused some small damage to the truck that was repairable but would take time and effort.  GREAT*  Those were two things we were in short supply.  Well, after a lot of work and some crazy ideas the truck was fixed and we could get back to the reason we rented the truck.

Unfortunately, the storm poured about one and a half inches down in a short amount of time.  The part of the patio that we still needed to dig was completely "muddy" and we were unable to finish that work.  Mark, Betsy, and Robert continued shoveling dirt into the back of the truck.  We recruited Devon's help after he got back from XC.   (Jessica didn't help at all on the project).  We took two more loads of dirt to dump and then we were done (99%).  While to boys took the truck to dump the dirt, Betsy dug up the remaining part of the patio dirt (despite the mud).  We are so close to being done!

We just need to level out some of the parts of the patio area and then we are ready for the next step.  What a great feeling.

So, back to the truck.  We cleaned it out, Betsy took it to a car wash and returned it!  DONE!!!