Operation Backyard: COMPLETE!

I HAVE A BACKYARD!!!  

My boyfriend and I are so blessed we have wonderful friends and family that helped us finally get our backyard cleaned up last weekend.  

Here are some before photos so you can see what we were working with, lol:

  Btw, all the green you see are weeds & vines, NOT grass!  

(And this was even after we coated 

the whole backyard with grass killer!)

The leaves were so thick, no photo could do it justice.  We only have a 0.25 acre lot and there are about 5 - 6 trees in our back yard.  I'm certain the prior owner/tenants NEVER touched a rake!  The limbs and brush were from some tree work we had some done. Some of the trees were hanging over the roof, so we had them cut back in case of a bad storm. 

Even though it was chilly that morning it was burning up by the afternoon, especially standing anywhere near the fire! 
I wound up getting so hot, I actually ended up with a heat rash  :(

Ahhh, the result of all of our hard work!  It looks sooo good....and HUGE!  I swear our backyard doubled in size!
 

 And needless to say, our puppies absolutely love it as well!  For the past 3 months the only "backyard'' they've had was a small fenced area on the side of the house that's maybe a 1/4 of the size at most.   I wish I'd had my phone on me when we first let them out, they were so cute running and exploring! It would have made a great video  :)

My boyfriend wants to pressure wash the back of the house, then he said we can replace the screens and have the windows open! 
Oh, and I may be trying to figure out how to sew new covers for the porch seat cushions (the current ones are a little mildewed and washing them with bleach did nothing)...this should be interesting!