We finally got that swimming pool we've always wanted..

It's time to play What's Missing in this Picture!

I won't make you scroll down to see the answers, but there are bonus points if you can find the 2 extra things in the picture:

• No porta-potty!
• No concussion-inducing plywood on the porch!
• No giant, flappy blue tarp!
• No rain!!

Extra credit: There's a bobcat pulling out with a load of dirt from the back yard.

Extra, extra credit: Our motorcycles are IN the garage! (that's worth extra points because it's such a crappy picture)

On what's likely to be the last Saturday we're woken up by people working on the house (mostly because we'll be dragging our butts out of bed to do everything else ourselves..), we heard the happy hum of a bobcat scooping out the dirt in back.

As you can see here, the back door is quite a bit lower than the ground level, which doesn't really work out all that well for a door. Everyone was very concerned about digging it out now, because if the rain returns before we get the retaining walls in, we'll have a giant swimming pool with the sides sliding/caving in. But we want to get started on that next, and the last part of these guys' job for us was excavating the area.

And here it is all dug out and shored up. It is very swimming pool like.. especially if when you jumped up and down on the bottom of a pool, it undulated out like a bouncy house. It's pretty worrisome actually.. there are pools of water which are gradually growing, and the ground back by the tent has caved in to about a foot away from the tent. We need to get the retaining walls in soon.

And that's the task for the coming week.. Coming soon: our sunken outdoor living room!