Landscaping Woes!!

We had the grass put in for our yard before we moved in. However, last summer we had been in our house for 3 years and we still hadn't got the landscaping done. Mark had good intentions, but he is just so busy and he never quite got to it. He had built this rock retaining wall once, though, without adhesive. A bunch of the neighborhood boys knocked most of it down with their bikes so when we had the rest of the landscaping done last summer, we had the guy redo the wall with adhesive so it would be more durable. We were extremely disappointed with the landscaping job. I just wanted someone to do it so I wouldn't have to worry about it. About my only suggestions were to keep the plants in the front small so they don't cover up all the rocks and I wanted strawberries on our back hill. It turned out to be the wrong season for strawberries so I got a hill covered with bark (for the same price). I think the guy could tell that I was clueless and I felt like he totally took advantage of us. In the end it cost us about $6000, the wall was almost $2,000. We felt like we got totally ripped off, but we blamed a lot of it on ourselves because I just wanted it done and Mark was never around to give his input. We decided that we learned an expensive lesson and it is a mistake we won't make again!! Until two days ago, we at least thought that he had done a good job constructing the wall.

When Kathy came to pick up Nancy on Friday, she pointed out the completely deconstructed rock wall and asked if the kids had done that. I took one look and knew what had happened. Reagan and Nancy had another friend over and the 3 of them had been out hunting for bugs. They found all sorts of awesome rollie pollies and snails. Their bug hunt lasted for about 10 minutes so three 5 year olds were able to completely destroy the rock wall in a matter of about 10 minutes. They started at one end of the wall and went all the way to the other end, pulling down the rocks. It was completely innocent, all they knew was they had found some great places to get bugs. When I first saw it, I can honestly say that I wasn't upset at all with the kids. It is just one of those things that happens. I was frustrated, though, that the adhesive hadn't held and that it was that easy for the kids to totally destroy the wall and not even know what they had done.

My first thought when I saw the rocks all over the grass was that I had to at least somewhat put the wall back together so Mark wouldn't have a coronary when he gets home from work. I started putting the rocks back on and once Rob got home he was helping me. He wasn't finding the same humor in the situation that I was. I had put about half the wall back together when I remembered that I should take a picture. Rob was just shaking his head that I wasn't even mad and I was going in to get my camera. I tried to explain to Rob that what is done is done and we just have to make the best of it.

I called Mark's work and left a message and he called me back a couple of hours later. When I told Mark about it, he just started laughing and told me that I should have taken pictures. I assured him that I had taken pictures of at least part of it. This just added another element to our landscaping fiasco. We did explain to Reagan what she did and not to find bugs behind the rock wall anymore. I think if she were to do it again, it wouldn't be quite so funny!
Here is the part of the wall that was still taken apart. This is what the entire wall looked like! (The white balance is set wrong for these pictures, but you can at least get the general idea!)
Here is the wall after I put it back together. Some parts fit back together better then other parts.