"I don't know if I'm an expert but I'm retiring"

The title comes from what Justin told our neighbor when he came over to see what were were doing to our yard. Seeing the breadth and depth of what we were doing to our sprinkler system he quiped, "You must be an expert by now." This summer has been overshadowed by this large and never ending yard project. When we expanded the patio we knew we would have to redo one major sprinkler line and 4 sprinkler heads that the patio now covers. What we didn't know was how difficult it would be to find where the sprinkler pipes went under the patio and where they exited. (Plus all the other complications we created but we'll get to that.) Finding the right pipes took a lot of fruitless digging and some dumb luck. Then finding a Saturday where Justin wasn't doing bishopy things or that we were actually in town was also a challenge. In the meantime I got up every day at 7 am to move the tractor sprinkler around the yard for a couple of hours. The line we were redoing waters the bulk of the back lawn and while the tractor sprinkler I borrowed from my dad is a great sprinkler, it has to be resituated several times to get it all. It actually waters better than our sprinklers. But it also meant a lot of lawn died while we were in Montana for 8 days.

Finally the day came that we rented a trencher to make the new trenches for the new pipes and new sprinkler heads. 

James got in on the action. I did too but I didn't like it. Too bumpy and I can't see what I'm doing.

We also wanted to add a few heads in the front yard so we trenched there first. Unfortunately we (I say we but it wasn't me driving) cut through the existing pipe and then chopped through the sprinkler electrical wires. Zone 3 is now out of commission and the automatic sprinkler system doesn't work. We can no longer turn the valves on with the controller in the garage, not to mention from the app on our phone.  Then we moved to the backyard. We (again, not me driving) chopped through the main pipe of another zone. Now we can't water zone 4 which is the entire north side of the house. Alrighty. Put that on our list of fixes. Then we...Okay it was Justin during all of this! But in his defense this machine runs backwards so there's no way to know what you're going to hit unless you already know it's under there. Like 10 feet after cutting that pipe Justin cut through the internet cable. That we kind of knew was there from when the "call before you dig" guy came in preparation for the concrete workers. So in case you're keeping track, we ended up with the ability to only water half our yard but only if we wanted to lay down and turn valves on manually and no internet. All for the low low price of $345 to rent a trencher!

That night we sat outside in the dark with a jar of wire nuts and spliced 12  wires back together so I could water half of the yard with the sprinkler system. 

Comcast came out on Tuesday to repair the line. That was a funny call to make. 

"Ma'am, let me run through a series of troubleshooting steps to diagnose the problem. This will take a few minutes. What is the error code you see on your television screen." 

"I don't need any of that. I know what happened. We chopped through the line putting in sprinklers." 

"Just one moment while I ask you a few more troubleshooting questions." (clickety clickety keyboard) "Oh looks like I don't need to ask you any more questions." (Puts me on hold) "I have created a repair ticket and the technician will be out there tomorrow between 4-6pm"

We repaired zone 4 a few days later and added a head for better coverage.

A few days after that zone 3 and the new line 5 were back up and running. 

It took some late nights with headlamps on our heads and mosquito bites on our legs to get it done. And a lot of exclaiming "So many rocks!" For the first time since May all my yard is automatically watered and I don't have to drag a hose and sprinkler around all morning, every morning. Hallelujah. Instead I've spent several mornings backfilling the trenches and sifting out rocks.

Only 1 head for this entire area? Now there are 5.

Here's the rocky soil we were digging and trenching through. 

This is where I threw a small sampling of some of the big rocks. (I threw away 15 gallons of rocks into our garbage can. Shhh.)

This rock has the honor and distinction of being the largest rock ever dug up. If we find a larger one, it will get replaced.

 

I still have a lot of rocks to remove before I plant grass. I keep wishing they were worth money.

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My sister was bemoaning the fact that her street in North Carolina is so narrow that it is difficult to drive through when people park their cars on it. I shared that I love how ridiculously and unnecessarily wide my street is. It's wider than the streets in either side of me and even wider than the busier cross streets to the north and south. To compare I measured. It's 55 feet wide. Is that wide for a residential street? 

My sister forwarded the information to our nephew and he chimed in with this and it cracked me up:

Justin and I went up to girls camp for their last night. The girls were making bracelets after dinner and Justin joined in. Once they found out he was colorblind it turned into a game of "what color does this look like to you?" It's his favorite game. 😄

Justin and his dad had spent most of the day boating with them. These girls are so cute and funny. We ate dinner with them, joined in on a fun activity then Justin led them in a discussion on receiving revelation before their testimony meeting. We had fun seeing Sarah in her element.

The next day was our town's Pioneer Day celebration. Pancake breakfast, parade, games and bounce houses at the park, fireworks that night. The usual.

Erica was feeling sick this day and opted out of the bounce houses. She wasn't feeling well when it was time for the ping pong ball drop so Justin stayed home with her. Luckily she was feeling well enough to make it to the park before the fireworks at dark.

James got to catch a ping pong ball this year. Until kids are 6 they are just put into a drawing. This year he got to go out into the drop zone and grab a ball. He won a scooter this year but no one in our group won anything this year. This was Sarah's last year for the ball drop. She's aged out.

Once the sun goes down and the glowsticks come out, it's magic time.

The fireworks started right on time this year. It's a show that never disappoints.

James stayed awake this year!

It's so long too. I seriously zoned out and and just watched, losing all track of time.

And the we walked 0.7 miles to where the car was parked and then drove the remaining 1.2 miles home. I'm not exaggerating.

Justin's brother and his wife and son were up from Moab that next day. We got to see their cute little boy. He's growing up so fast and is so cute. He's pretty wary of us all but he likes Erica.

Just kidding, we're never done with sprinkler problems! The last head on the line we redug doesn't have enough water pressure. We think we may have loosened a connection when we dragged up the pipe with the trencher before it cut through. So we need to dig up the lawn some more to find out if we need to make a repair. Sprinklers, man. Love 'em and hate 'em.

I don't have any pictures but Henry went to Deacon's camp for 4 days. They had plans to go to Starvation Reservoir (I've never been there but it sounds nice. Lol.) two hours away. But half of the boys had football clinic and tryouts so they went to a campsite up Hobble Creek instead so boys could come and go as needed. Kind of a bummer because that detracts from the experience but you do what you gotta do. Henry came home Saturday morning exhausted, happy, and filthy. Erica wouldn't even hug him.

Justin's parents kindly took us boating on Saturday afternoon. Each of our kids could bring a friend. The kids had more fun that way but it made for a long day with everyone taking a turn on stuff. We tried out the zup for the first time. It was a blast.

The final and main event is tubing of course. Justin and I went out for a crazy ride. I'm still so sore but I'm pretty sure we showed our kids we still got it. This is Sarah with her friend and Henry's friend.

More Erica and babies. This is the newest Dye. She was born a couple of weeks ago and we love her already. Erica is always glad for more girl cousins.

Corey found these socks somewhere and knew James needed them.

He told me they are too hot to wear in the summer but once it's winter he's going to wear them every day and he hopes he gets lots of doughnuts.

So I guess that's July. The kids are excited to get their schedules and see what teachers they get. We have a few things they still want to do before school starts so we'll see if we get around to them. I'm just glad we don't have any trips or camps to prepare for. The sprinklers run themselves so maybe I can just relax for a bit. (I probably just jinxed myself.)