it's a jungle out there {no more}

the week before school started, matt got it into his head to do some garden work. we inherited a jungle of a backyard when we bought our place. which is a good thing when your kids want to swim naked, but a not so good thing when you don't want to get eaten alive by mosquitoes. his last day working at summer camp was last friday and so saturday morning he disappeared outside.  

a few hours later i came out to this.  a clear path through the side of our house. 

it. was. incredible! 

every single palm "bush" {they are miserable plants} was covered in vines and had tiny palm fronds growing all around the bottom. there were weeds everywhere and just general craziness! i wish i could have gotten a before picture of this side of our yard, but i didn't cause i had no idea he was going to do so much. 

 i did decide to take before pictures of the rest of our yard.
this is behind our pool. you can tell the difference in what he has already cleared because you can see the fence. you couldn't see the fence before. and where he is walking is still to be finished. 

 this tree was particularly intimidating to me! totally overgrown and crazy!

this is the south side of the house. 

what a MESS!

matt worked on the yard from 8-8 on saturday, 1-8 on sunday, 8-8 on monday, he took the morning off tuesday to go to the beach with us and then resumed his gardening after we got back from 2-7 and wednesday all day too. it was crazy! it was amazing watching the process. i wanted to be out there helping so badly, but penelope was cutting her top 4 teeth and wouldn't sleep longer then 30 minutes at a time. 

it was matt's project. 

he had alot of time to think about the coming year, and to pray, and to think some more. that garden was overgrown with weeds and growth in all the wrong areas...much like our lives can get at times. it was good for him to have that time to recenter before he had to be back to school last thursday. 

i think cleaning out our backyard and fasting have become pretty large markers in his life. 

here are the after pictures!!!!

 our neighbor told us that in the 20 years they have lived next door they had never seen the back fence!

they were so happy with what matt was doing back there that tim, our neighbor, brought over his chain saw and helped matt cut two trees down and they even repaired our well pump together one afternoon.
someday we would like to build a bamboo privacy fence all around the property. 

 micah was grumpy...he was tired of waiting to get in the pool.

 the yard still needs some design, and decorative details, but the bones are there. nice and clean.

i have big plans for the atrium. can't wait to get at it! all i need is some time....ah time.

 this side of the house gets the most direct sun. i want to take out the pavers here and build some raised garden beds. i'd like to do something decorative on the wall too. 

maybe a trellis or some kind of sculpture. 

it will come to me.

 this is the second pile like this that matt put out. he had to do it in two week increments. this pile was double the length of our car and taller than micah. 

what a difference hard work makes!  the best thing is that a change like this is pretty much free. it would have cost us hundreds of dollars to pay a landscape company to come in and clean our jungle out. 

all it took matt was alot of time, some sore muscles and about 50 gazillion bug bites.