Paved Paradise

My fourth-born built me a patio.

Pretty cool, right?

To be fair, she had a solid head start. This area of our backyard was already designated as the fire pit zone and lined with a deep bed of river rock.

Which looked nice. But felt none too comfortable on our bare feet.

So when my daughter noticed a heap of flagstone leftover from several other paving projects, she said, "Hey, do you think there's enough rock to redo the fireplace patio?"

And thus an idea was born.

^ The short answer was, no. There were not quite enough stones on hand to do the job. But after an afternoon of laying out what we had, and puzzle piecing those stones into a pleasing configuration, my daughter had a good idea of what we needed.

And the next day we headed to the stone yard for six more stones.

Also loaded up 900 pounds of sand.

^ And that evening, my determined daughter built me a pation.

^Well. She got it all done except for the final top coat of sand. We hosed that into place the next day. 

^ In just 48 hours, our new patio went from plan to perfection, and our tender toes, I can promise you, are very happy with the results.

^ Baby, however, still prefers the bushes.