Fire Pit Folly - Part 1

I have the most awesome-est husband in the world. It's like I have my own personal Field of Dreams. If I mention it, he will build it. Amazing! Seriously - if I mention that something would be nice, if he's on board with it, he takes the ball and runs all the way. He is the hunter to my gatherer and - I may be completely off on this, but it's what I've observed - he loves to hunt stuff down and drag it home in true man fashion. We don't do things halfway here at House of Harried Mom. It's a little crazy.

Last month when we were planning William's birthday party, we decided to do a backyard movie and a camp out. I thought it would be nice to have a fire pit! We've never roasted marshmallows in our yard, because it always seemed silly to me to gather around the gas grill and do it - even though as a kid we roasted them over charcoal briqquetes - YUM! So I started google-ing 'fire pit' and emailing links to Matt. I'm sure he LOVED me adding another project to the list :) This is sort of what I initially pictured, only even simpler.
Really I was just thinking a ring of stones. But we have a hill in our backyard & we didn't want to waste any flat space so I started looking for pictures of fire pits built into hills...

I guess I can see now why we got a bit carried away. Needless to say, this did not get completed in time for William's party.

Anywho - Matt took a trip to the stone store by himself & brought back some stuff for us to peruse. A week or two later, we'd placed an order, rented a Dingo, and he started ripping up somewhere around 150 square feet of our back yard :)
These pictures were from September 29th. Figures that we haven't had any rain for 3 months, and we decide to do some work in the backyard and it starts raining. Matt worked in the drizzle for hours that afternoon, moving all that dirt.

By Sunday, October 3, he was ready to start marking out the pit, retaining wall and small patio. William was only too happy to help!
Actually the first thing he said to me after school Tuesday was, 'Is Dad working in the backyard??' William is all about knowing how things work, and helping with stuff like this.
After Matt took a nap next to the dirt hole (hee hee! he's really looking at it from ground level) and made sure it was the size and depth we needed, he shoveled in the aggregate for the base of the patio. By hand, using a wheelbarrow to move it from where the delivery truck dumped it in the side yard. All 5000 lbs of it. Yes, 5000 POUNDS. And he's decided that it's not enough, we need 5000 more. That would be 5 tons of rock total. I think I owe him a cake. Or something.
Anyway! That's what it looks like right now! Today they delivered the fire pit kit, block for the retaining wall, and the brick and flagstone for the patio. I really hope this looks like what I have pictured in my head :)
So I guess you know what we're doing this weekend! Hopefully we are extending the time we can use our back yard, as well as creating a space that we can enjoy as a family for many years to come. Stay tuned...