This is the story of our wonderful new back yard fun land!
It all started one Saturday when Chris came over to hang out. Little did he know he would be set to work organizing hundreds of pieces of carefully packed, but unmarked pieces of wood. But, being the master organizer that he is, and the trooper he has proved himself to be, we got it done. The wood covered our driveway! We had to measure and assign a letter to each piece of wood in correspondence with the instructions. Sound fun, huh??
Then, the next morning, my mom, Anne, Dave, Justin and Audrey all came over to help us make these piles of wood into an awesome play structure. This is the spot it was going to fill.
It went up much smother than could have ever been expected. All the pieces fit, all the screws, nuts and bolts were there. Dave and John worked on the main structure, Justin and Audrey made the "rock wall", door, chimney and mailbox (yes, it has a mail box), my mom carried wood from the front yard to the back, both my mom and Anne fetched wood and held things in place when needed. And I was the keeper of the instructions!! So I got to boss everyone around! :) Oh, and the kids were home this whole time, Julie played in the sandbox a lot and Andy hung out in his swing, or with whatever Grandma was closest.
The frame went up with only a minor snafu (I told them to put the cross beams on backwards...oops!) Then the flooring went down and siding went up. Justin was gracious enough to test it's durability by sitting on it to put up the siding.
After Julie tested the door, and we put up a little more siding, we decided to call it quites to the day. This is where we left it...Pretty good I think, we had worked about 6 hours on it, and it was starting to resemble the end product!
Then, yesterday while I was at work and the kids were with my mom, Dave, Anne and John FINISHED the play structure!!! Yes, that is John in there and Dave stuck underneath!
But when we got home this is what we saw! This picture is from this morning because it was too dark last night to get a good one.
I wish we had a video of Julie's reaction. She made a sound like when Homer Simpson sees a donut (OHHHH) and she did her little happy dance! She was so excited. She didn't really understand what it was when it was being built, but when she saw it finished, she got it! And so far, the swing is both her and Andy's favorite parts!
This morning when Julie woke up, the first words out of her mouth were "Mommy, lets play" as she ran to the back door. And yes, we were out there in our jammies! Thank you so much, Anne, Dave, Mom, John, Justin, Audrey and Chris for all the work you put into this and the time. It means the world to me, and Andy and Julie too!
Oh, and check out the attitude...yes, it has started already!
Julie has been a little testy, not super happy that I was not home all day, but we made it through.
