Gore-Jis!

(Our front lawn: pre-tilled)

When we moved into our house the back lawn lacked…lawn.

Our backyard was a mess of crabgrass, weeds and when it rained, puddles that didn’t ever drain. This year we aimed our saved pennies at saving the backyard.
The vision we had for our lawn included sprinklers, sod, a swingset and a cement pad.

We've planned and worked for six months, making slow progress

and feeling frustrated with each other a lot.

(My big bro, Wade)
Today we laid our sod!

And it looks GORE-JIS!
I really stopped believing (around mid-June) that this day would ever come,

even though Joel has literally spent every free night and weekend working on it.

We’ve had a lot of help from family and friends, but really folks, Joel is the real hero here.
Bless him, will you?
Joel and I spent much of this afternoon just staring at our new and improved lawn.

We decided just Wednesday that we’d spring for sod and install it this weekend. Joel asked me if I would send an email out to our friends in the ward to see who could come help us, and this is what I sent out:

You Busy Saturday?
Who am I emailing this to?

The Cooking Group!

Why? Because you're the only people in the ward that I have emails for.
What do I want? Free labor.
That's right, folks. We've been tearing up our sad, sad lawn all summer and even have our new sprinklers in.

We've ordered sod (yikes!) to be delivered sometime Friday night and are going to lay it on Saturday starting at 8:00 a.m.
Do you want to help us?
We'd love to have your help, whether it be for an hour or for 10 minutes. We'll be working on it all day, but we're asking for any of ya'lls help from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
If that's not enough to entice you, we'll also have snacks, treats and a live band...okay, no band, but we might turn the radio on or something.
So, if you want us to be your BFF and to owe you BIG TIME for future services, come over Saturday morning and work like crazy.
Thank you in advance for your help. We love this ward and feel lucky to have so many friends here. (have I instilled enough guilt in you yet? just kidding...kind of)
Thanks,
Beth

Joel’s comment on this email was that I was basically just begging for help, but I thought I was rather clever.
Then Joel sent out another email to friends and family which went like this:
When it’s sod-layin’ time in Nebraska…
. . . it's also sod layin time in Provo at Joel & Beth's house. We're
having sod delivered friday night and will be laying it in the back
yard on Saturday morning. We're inviting all we know to come help.
On such short notice we realize that most of you will already have
better things to do, but we thought we'd send out a plea anyway. If
you've got an hour to spare, we'll appreciate your help, if not, we
know you'll be here in spirit, laying that spritual sod . . .or what
ever spirits do at a sod laying party. Hmmmm. . . maybe we should
have looked into that spiritual sod. I bet it's much lighter and
never gets weeds, but does it green up?
Anywho, thanks for the thought,
Joel

(Nice shot of somebody's be-hind)
Here was the response this morning: About 15 people from our ward, Joel’s friends, and my brothers showed up to help.

('Nuther good butt shot)

What we thought was going to take us four hours took one hour with everybody’s help.(hard workers, paid in Krispy Kremes)

Then we decided to use the leftover sod for a problem spot in the front yard. We borrowed a neighbor’s tiller and with everybody’s help the front lawn was tilled, cleaned up and graded, with new sod in place in about another hour. Wow! What great friends we have! Thanks to everybody who took time out to help us. We appreciate it so much and look at what we have to show for it. Amazing.
Don’t you just want to roll around on it naked? Just Kidding!...kind of.

(Cookies taken to our neighbor-helpers)