Another Brick in the... Patio

Our houseguests arrived at 3 am this morning, so I didn't get much sleep last night. My friend Kinnari is in town with her husband and two young boys for her sister's wedding, which is on Saturday. (Josh and I are also friends with her sister, so we're going to the wedding, too.) We had to scramble to get the house ready for guests -- and reasonably child-proofed -- but that forced us to unpack and take care of a lot of things that we might have otherwise let slide.

I was hoping to sleep in this morning, but the landscapers were back bright and early to work on the brick patio in the back yard. They weren't able to find new bricks that matched the old ones, so we decided to create a pattern that blended the old and new. First, they spread a layer of gravel in the big hole they dug out yesterday. (I took these photos from the master bedroom, so there's a bit of a window screen effect...)
Then they covered the gravel with a layer of crushed rock and a layer of sand.
And then they started laying the brick on top of that.
They worked until about 5:30 and finished the whole 12x15' patio. Not bad!
They also regraded the yard and tilled in some new topsoil.
Unfortunately, they did not clear everything out of the driveway, so we STILL can't park there! They'll be back tomorrow to finish up the yard and fill in between the runners on the driveway, so maybe by tomorrow evening we'll actually be able to park in our own driveway. It's the little things in life...