Playa del Carmen

We took a much needed break from the patio project to head to Mexico to celebrate the wedding of a friend of Ben's from Colorado. Travis and Stephanie were married on June 5 in a beautiful setting. We had a great time seeing alot of people we haven't seen in awhile (or ever, in my case) and enjoying the sites.

We spent most of the time relaxing and hanging out at the beach with friends, but took a day trip to the Tulum Ruins of the Mayan People, which was really neat.

A Very Large Puzzle

Continuing on from our backyard project from last summer... the flagstone patio. Yes, we decided to upgrade from the beautiful concrete patio we poured last year (See post August 2008). Happy to report that we didn't have any cracks in the concrete despite the cold winter.


We picked out 3 tons of Pennsylvania blue flagstone from Marenokos Rock Center in Issaquah and had it delivered to our house... unfortunately they had to put it in the parking strip, which just added to the distance we had to move it, including up our driveway. We are getting a little smarter with experience, and we decided to employ a dolly.



Following step-by-step instructions someone posted on the web (thank you internet), we started the process of dry fitting the stones. I guess it would have helped our moral if we had noticed that the patio described in the instructions was for a 10x10 patio compared to the 300 sq ft patio we were creating. Needless to say, it took a lot longer than we anticipated.


After a whole of moving and cutting, we had a dry fit for the patio.... 89 stones. All we had to do was remove and mortar them (of course, keeping a slope to the drain). That also took awhile and alot of patience. In the end, we are loving the new look...though we are only still part of the way there, and have a ways to go.