There once was a house on 10th Street with six puffy bushes out front and a sidewalk that although rocked in spots, was fully intact.

Then I came across a backhoe. Let the fun begin!!!

Today I turned from Mr. Ironman to Mr. Heavy machinery thingy operator. With access to my cousin Ricky's backhoe, his greatly appreciated help and bobcat machine we pulled out all the bushes and removed our retaining wall in preparation for our new concrete steps and landscaping.

The morning started off interesting as Ricky dropped this thing off, and gave me literally a 1 minute crash course on how to operate it. There's seriously ten different levers that you need to use to drive this thing. He said, this lever moves it forward. This lever drops the dozer. This lever moves it backwards. To use the bucket you use these two levers. Jen serioulsly thought I was going to end up killing myself. I came close a couple of times but when the day was over there were no injuries to report.

I went to town with this thing tearing up everything in sight. Finally I thought. My video game skills at use. See mom and dad, endless hours in front of the Nintendo as a kid can pay off after all. I was all of the sudden wishing I mastered the claw game at the arcade. None the less, I was having a blast and told Jen that I want one of these things for Christmas!!!

After I got done demolishing everything, Ricky took over and made everything look nice and neat. Now we're ready for a new wall and steps. Very exciting stuff!

I can't wait till it's done......so I can go back to being Mr. Ironman! :) I skipped my run today but still plan on biking 70 miles in the morning at the Mon Valley ride.