Landscaping -- Here We Come!

When we bought our house 1 1/2 years ago, it was obvious the landscaping had been done at one point; but, unfortunately, it had not been kept up. It certainly didn't help things that we spent all last summer in Rawlins and didn't take care of it at all. I wish I had a picture of how bad it looked when we got home -- some weeds were as tall as me!

Anyway, we decided to totally redo the landscaping. Last fall, we pulled up every single weed and covered the yard completely with black tarp. We get strong winds through the canyon, so we had to put down lots of rock to hold the tarps down. Here is a picture of the yard in front of our house (complete with tarp):
Here's the back of our house:

This is the view standing at the back of our house looking out over the back yard.

And here is a picture of the patio. It is cracking lots of places and falling apart -- especially in the back corner by the far window well you can see. In fact, we have had flooding in the basement through that window well because the pavement has sunk in and creates a slope that leads all the water straight into the well. Every time it rains now, I have to get a ladder and a bucket, and climb down in the well several times a day to empty the water. This is one of the main reasons I want to do the landscaping right away -- with all the spring rain coming, I really don't want to get all my exercise by climbing up and down a window well...
We had planned to do all the landscaping ourselves, but we've decided instead to have a professional company come do it. I met a guy who lives close to us and is willing to give us a good deal. I'm hoping to have some "after" pictures posted within a couple of weeks!!!