Eli & Cole - two boys, one big adventure: Swingset

Saturday, August 2, 2008

Swingset - Part 1

This is the weekend of the swingset. Tim & I are building a swingset for Eli for his 1st birthday present. We picked the kit up at Lowe's on Wednesday night and, as I think I wrote in an earlier post, my Mom was coming up to watch Eli so we could put it together.

Started out.....2 boxes for the tower (almost 200 pounds each), 1 box for the swing beam (100 pounds) and a 10' long slide. We didn't get the plastic roof or rock climbing wall......yet. We brought it all home Wed night and put it in the garage. Last night we pulled the tower out of the two boxes, took inventory of the parts and organized them all in the yard. We started about 8am today. The instructions said that it would take two skilled workers about 16 hours to complete. Are you kidding me?! The day went very well. Eli & Grandma spent a lot of time outside watching and being part of the action. Tim and I worked great together. I was the helper and organizer. I would line up the parts and pieces for the next step and I would help Tim where he needed it - either supporting, measuring, lining up, whatever. It was a great system and we didn't have a single frustrating moment. It really was fun! Never ever did we think we'd be married with a child, putting together a swingset. Our reality is so much fun! We finished the tower at about 2:30pm (including a break for lunch) and after cleaning up, had to call it a day because of a thunderstorm. We're hoping to do the swing beam tomorrow but we'll see. Eli did have fun playing on the tower already and we've taken a few test trips down the slide. It's like having a tree house with a slide - and soon to have swings! I can't deny that Tim & I are continuing our childhoods through Eli. I went down the slide a few times and will probably swing when that's up. =)

We owe a super huge thank you to my Mom for coming to help us this weekend. Eli was so good and so happy. It helped us because we could focus on the swingset and know that Eli was in good hands.

BTW: We stopped at Lowe's tonight to pick something up and saw that Lowe's would have charged us $440 for what we put up today. It would probably be another $100 or so for the swing beam. A day well spent!