Swing Set

We got a new swing set for the kids and they couldn't be happier.  We picked it up Thursday night, one big box of lots of pieces.  Friday morning as soon as Lucy got on the bus we got to work putting it all together.  We first had to take it piece by piece to the backyard.  It was to heavy to carry down just the 2 of us.  It was pretty overwhelming to just look at all the different pieces of wood, screws, bolts and the thickness of the instruction manual. We just started to work piece by piece.

We slowly assembled all the different parts, each piece seemed to take so much time.

Hours later we had almost all the pieces put together.  We only stopped for a short time to eat lunch.  We hurried and ate so we could just keep working.  We also realized that even though it was a nice day in the 60's we were getting pretty sunburned.  We couldn't complain because it was such a perfect day to be outside working. Garrett had fun playing in the big box it came in and just trying to help us. He kept himself busy all day playing on his own.

Once we had all the pieces put together we moved it over to the back of the yard where we wanted it.  It was finally nice to see it coming together and realizing we were almost done.

When we were almost done we took a dinner break and went to Wendy's for dinner.  It was nice to sit down and take a break.  When we got home we finished the final touches and let the kids start playing.  We were proud of our work, it only took us 10 hours to finish the swing set.  We literally worked all day on it. We really wanted to finish it in one day, we didn't want to drag it out over 2 days.  We were also having family over the next day and wanted it finished for them to all play on. When we were done with the swing set we worked together mowing the lawn and trimming.  Our neighbors behind us are really nice and came over as we were finishing and told us they had been watching us all day build that.  They were discussing through the day what they thought it was we were building, she was happy she guessed right. They are so nice and even let JJ borrow a drill bit he didn't have.

The kids are in heaven with their own playground in the backyard.  Lucy has mastered the monkey bars and Garrett loves to swing.  JJ and I had a nice day working together all day.  I am not sure how much help I was.  I did read ahead each step and gather all the materials for the next step and helped with holding things but he really did the majority of the work.  He was so sweet and told me the best part was just how much fun it was to spend the whole day along side me working together.  It really was a nice day!