This year I have been taking “daily” photos of our backyard. You can see them in my instagram feed or #dailybackyardphoto2014.

I actually take a couple a week, but it is really fun to see how the yard changes with the seasons.

I get comments each time about how people love our yard.

It hash’t always been my happy place, but has evolved into my happy place in the 6+ years that we have lived here.

When we moved in it already had “good bones”. Awesome 80-100 foot tall douglas firs, a large deck, a flat grassy area held up by a rock wall that separated a lower “dirt” area that was great for the dogs.

The dog runs fit almost perfectly into the lower corner of the yard.

It stayed this way for 3 years. That was all we needed at the time. The kids were young and we didn’t need much to keep them amused…grass and a few toys and it was just fine.

About a year after we moved in we had some landscaping plans drawn up for the front and back yard. Eventually, I talked Ryan into an idea to build a platform between the two trees in the middle of our yard so that the kids could have a play/tree house.

Later that year we had the landscaping done. It was a bigger project in the front yard. In the back yard, we added a gravel path through the lower dirt, had some stone put in, and added gravel for our fire pit area.

Since 2011, the backyard has been my happy place. We’ve hosted birthday parties, backyard movies, impromptu late night fires with the neighbors, and spent hours and hours out there as a family.

It gets a perfect mixture of sunlight and shade during the summer.

After the leaves fall, it opens up to get more light during the dark winter months.

In late spring, as the leaves fill out the trees and the grass finally fills in, we can fully enjoy our happy place.

Here are more posts about the landscaping and playhouse:

{update} play-tree-house

my husband rocks

{in our garden} the big dig…and move, and build, and fill, and plant

play outside every day

friends around the campfire

home is…evolution of a happy place.