A real damper on the day...

9/11:  The day didn't go exactly as we had all hoped. :-(  When Garrett and the crew showed up at 6:45 it started to drizzle.  He quickly called the concrete company and tried to get them to stop the run...no go.  The mixer arrived and the guys scrambled to get tarps up to cover the pour locations as the rain became heavier.  It took some serious ingenuity but they managed to get the front stoop framed and poured as well as the area under the deck and the retaining wall under the stairs.

Covering the deck to block the rain from hitting the newly poured concrete below...

Tony hard at work under the "tent"

The retaining wall below the deck stairs is poured...

Billy and Paul out front...

At least there were smiles around regardless of the weather...Tommy & Paul just went with the flow of it all.

Billy risking life and limb to make sure no rain snuck through the tarps... 

...crazy man standing on boards under the tarp that are leaned up against the deck railing (a 2 story deck!!!) and keep in mind, this was in the rain so it was slick! 

Can you guess who the VIP of the day was???  BILLY!  He was all over the place...here he is marking the border of the new front stoop.

Garrett was the brave one to get back into the lantana from hell!  That stuff makes me so itchy!!!

The stone guys cracked me up as they made capes out of tarps to stay dry as they unloaded cinder blocks and sand for the benches (they didn't get formed due to the rain)

The front area is tarped and I finally managed to get Billy to stop working long enough to smile for ONE picture!

I wasn't quick enough to get a picture of the back being stamped but I did get the view from my front door!

Garrett checks in on the progress...

It looks beautiful...now we cross our fngers and hope there is no wind to disturb the tarps and that the rain will stop so things can dry up.

About 10 minutes after Garrett and the rest of the guys packed it in for the day the stone arrived...where on earth did they think I was going to put 5 palettes of stone???

Right in front of the garage of course - what was I thinking?!?

Poor guys had to HAND unload all that stone...in the rain!

At the end of the day I had a HUGE wet mess in front of my house but what can you do? I was impressed with everything they were able to get done given the circumstances...hopefully Monday will be dry and they can crank out the bench and stairs as well as finish pouring the patio itself.