We have a new addition to the backyard, a homemade swingset. The park in our 'hood has a swingset, but it's fairly dilapidated, and not located in our backyard, so we thought we'd just build our own. We also needed to move the sandbox because it was back in the corner that had chickens and bunnies just over the fence. Chickens and bunnies stink. And we had a corkscrew willow tree that needed to be planted before it started freezing, and we wanted to put it where the sandbox was. Those three things combined with no other plans for the weekend led us to Lowe's....and Home Depot, and OSO lumber, and Ace Hardware. We shopped around to find the best prices/quality. And Ace was the only place in Ferndale open on Sunday that had what we needed. We finished late Sunday and had to let the concrete set up, so the boys couldn't play on it right away. Crystal being the considerate wife that she is thought that I'd want to be there when the boys got set loose on it, so she kept them off of it ALL DAY! What a mean mama. Needless to say, I arrived home to some anxious boys. And pulling in the driveway almost right behind me was Scotty, Liz, and Brooklie. So they got to break it in too. It's got some tweaks to be made (what home improvement project doesn't?) but it is WAAAYYY fun, and Jax only fell off 3 times in the 30 minutes he played on it.


My hope is to eventually add on a playhouse above the sandbox with a slide coming out of it, but Crystal is trying to keep it simple. Why won't she just let me complicate things? I think we both have the same vision of a backyard fortress with fire pole and monkey bars and twisty slide, we just have different feelings about that fortress. We'll save that "discussion" for later.