Tiny Slave Labor

And the #1 reason to have children is: free tiny slave labor!!!

John created this "quarry" in our back yard as part of the never-ending saga that began as a routine toilet replacement.

How does replacing a toilet morph into excavating concrete stairs in the backyard, you may ask. Simple, really.

1. We decided to do a quick replace of an under-performing toilet in preparation for guests.

2. Upon removal of said toilet it became apparent that the toilet had been leaking significantly for some time, soaking through several layers sub-floor, foundation, etc. It also became apparent that in the grand tradition of our complexly and strangely remodeled house, there were entire squares of the sub-floor that were missing, basically linoleum directly over the crawl space. This discovery led to:

3. The foundation/sub-floor beneath the bathroom needed to be replaced.

4. John, being the perfectionist that he is, couldn't fix the floor until the sloping/sinking laundry room/bathroom section of the house were jacked up.

5. We got a quote of $12,000 to fix the foundation/sloping problem of the house the "right" way, and decided we'd let John have a go at it.

6. John decided he to jack up the house and pump concrete underneath in some sort of maneuver to fix the foundation. But he couldn't do that until:

7. He broke up the concrete steps attached to that end of the house. As you can see, beneath the concrete steps were other, smaller concrete steps, and under that even older, tinier ones....

Jeffrey saw me taking a picture of Arabelle and had to run stand in front of her.