Retaining wall project

After just a few minor hiccups, our backyard retaining wall is halfway done!  We spent about 4-5 hours on it today, and Mark hopes to finish it by the end of the day tomorrow.  Luckily for me,  I have a soccer game in Dunedin (south island) so I will be gone ALL day long.  Which means Mark gets the whole day to himself to work on it!  Here's what we have so far...

As you can see, we made a few minor miscalculations (note how the pole on the left is just a bit shorter than the one on the right?) but nothing that can't be fairly easily fixed, so I'd say so far it's a success for our very first project.  eventually we will have to build a big fence to actually enclose our yard, but we'll put that off for a while I think.  Now, we just have to figure out what in the world we are going to do with that HUGE pile of rocks/dirt/clay that is left on our lawn!!

We have never had a yard before (since we have never had a house before) and while it is a LOT of work (seeing how we cannot even think about being able to afford a gardener), we are actually really enjoying it.  Pulling weeds isn't the most glamorous thing in the world, but it is nice to see how much nicer and cleaner we can make our yard look!  We have a lot of things planned for our backyard (depending on finances, of course), but I think they should really add to the value of our house so it will all work out in the end.  Or at least I will keep telling myself that. :)  Anyway, hopefully tomorrow or Monday I will post pictures of the finished retaining wall!  Maybe even a before and after picture, if I remembered to take a before picture, that is...