Our New Cement

I’m finally posting pictures of our new driveway and sidewalk! We got our new drive the weekend of Labor Day and it was quite a process! Two days to tear up the old cement, dig up the beast of a tree stump that caused the driveway to crumble, a weekend in between and one day to pour the cement.

Ethan loved all the action in our front yard. He would stand at the window and watch the big truck and backhoe tear up the driveway and yard. The workers enjoyed “showing off” for him too.

One of the guys (your typical, stereotype construction worker) decided to take a short cut and not help break up a larger piece of concrete to put in the backhoe to then transport to the dump truck… instead he decided he would use his own weight to balance it on the bucket while the driver of the backhoe would lift it to the dumptruck. They were successful in their endeavor until the guy was making his way down when the driver moved a gear and, “crunch”, his hand got smashed in the gears of the bucket! I was, of course, out taking pictures when it all happened and, ugh…. all I could think was “oh my gosh… it just cut off his hand!” Needless to say they all left and took him to the hospital, and the guy was back working in 3 hours! He ended up only breaking a finger. Such excitement!

Besides the “finger” incedent, everything was going great and on schedule until they started in on the stump. We were told in the beginning that they could pull out this monsterous tree stump no problem and that they would do it for no charge. We knew cottonwood trees were known for their massive root systems so we made sure it was ok with them to do it… they said ‘no problem’… boy were they kicking themselves when they started in on the whole process. It set them back a whole day just to get the stump out! At one point they had dug a trench all the way around the stump about 5-6′ deep and it wouldn’t even budge!!! They finally managed to pry it loose but not without a lot of frustration!

The pictures should tell the rest of the story… check out the album by clicking on the picture below.

driveway