Construction Zone

Before Christmas we had a some mild flooding in our basement when all the snow started to melt while it was raining. It is a slushy, slushy mess outside. The pipes to drain the water were frozen and it had no where to drain properly because the cement pad outside the preschool room door (old garage, carport area) was cracked. That's how the water was getting in.

Well this problem started again on January 11th. We would shop vac up the water only for it to fill up again hours later. Kurt and I were scheduled to get on the plane that Saturday for Cancun. Kurt really didn't want it to flood while we were gone. So he came home from work, cleaned up the water, again, and immediately got on the phone with my brother-in-law Dan (the man.) The conversation sounded very expensive as Kurt threw around words like, "rip out," "new pad," and "cement."

As soon as Kurt got off the phone he said, "On Thursday after you finished preschool Dan and Doug are going to rip out the cement pad and pour a new one. It's a perfect time because no one will be around for a week and it'll have lots of time to dry while we're in Cancun."

WHAT?!?!!

I was at least expecting to discussion this! But no, it was already a done deal. Plan set in motion. Okay. Apparently we needed to add some excitement as we headed out the door for our trip so we turned our yard into a construction zone. The kids loved it! Rooster the most. She watched the longest and most frequently, "Dan, Dan, Dan" she kept repeating as she pointed to Dan in the backhoe.

The BEFORE picture


The problem area


So I obviously don't have enough construction knowledge to give an accurate verbal account of each step. But here is the process through pictures (that I understand!)









Austin helped with the work after he got home from school.


(Day Two)












The kids took a corner of the fresh cement to capture time.




The FINISHED product!


This picture does not even slightly do it justice. Dan and Doug did such a nice job, it looks fantastic! It's even, flat, smooth and beautiful. Both vehicles can easily fit onto it and it'll be super nice for the preschoolers too. We also had 2 truck loads of gravel hauled in. Thanks Ruf Excavation!