The camera ate my homework and other excuses

If you're wondering why I haven't posted more pictures in the last couple posts, the card in our camera decided to die yesterday. Particularly obnoxious as I had not pulled the photos off for day 3 through 5 last week. Though in another light, I suppose there's only so many way to post a picture of a trench and say "Look its longer and deeper" (Editor's Note: adding pictures captioned with that phrase to your blog brings in a lot of interesting traffic from search engines. Re-phrasing suggested).
We've entered this phase of construction where its not entirely possible to tell what was done that day.

We aimlessly wander around the yard after work and think, "Is that trench deeper?" or "Was that hole there yesterday?" And while I'm sure our neighbors can tell you exactly how long it took to jack hammer another inch off that rock buried in the main trench, it is hard to look at the end of the day and identify the progress that was made.
Day 8: Main features of note...

Trench: Now long and deeper!

Rock: Now a few inches shorter!

Other Trench: Now with drainage pipes!

Half wall: Now looking more like a half wall!

Ok, that last is a little unfair. One modification I insisted on for our design was a wide double stair from our patio down to the grass area, with a slightly higher half wall on each side that can serve a bench for the grass area. I'd like to claim that this was an artistic measure. Realistically, I see myself running out the door, across the patio and using the half wall as a leap point to fly over into a nice tumble roll on the grass. I have several excuses lined up for why someone my age would do this ranging from ludicious to arguable (one must practice falling if you are to prone to it anyways and wish to remain mostly unharmed). However, I think it just sounds like fun and there's no one to see me make a fool of myself in the backyard...Other than my husband...and he knew what he was getting into when my dad said "no backsies" at our wedding.
Regardless, the half wall is the most interesting thing in the backyard at this point and I'm truly excited by it because its the first thing that it starting to show us proportion and placement according to the design. Now we can look out into the yard and know about where the patio and grass areas are. It's also slightly entertaining to look into the yard and just see these two little cement and cinderblock walls. I imagine our neighbors looking into the backyard and thinking, "Are the putting in small horse jumps?"