The Swingset

As I went back through the files of photos to post, it occurred to me that I'm further behind in my blog updates than I thought! So before I can get to DK, there's a couple of other older posts I need to share first. I know, I know, the suspense over what in the world is a DK is practically killing you, but hopefully I can catch up enough to share that info. tomorrow!

In the meantime, last month at the end of July we decided our backyard was in sorry shape and needed some serious attention! With a laundry list of to-do projects, we decided to attack the scary old trampoline area first. This trampoline has been incredibly well loved for many years, but now has become a seriously dangerous death trap that's no longer safe for our kids to play on.

So the first step involved tearing down the old rig. To our extreme surprise this proved to be a much more dangerous job because at the top of every pole where the safety netting was attached there was an enormous wasp nest!!! And to make things even worse, throughout the entire main metal ring of the trampoline where all the metal springs are connected, the entire ring was filled wasp nests! I'm still amazed our children didn't get stung to death every time they went near this thing!

We had originally laid down black tarp and bark as ground cover, but as you can see it was no match for the weeds.

Yup, lots of junk to clean up! Fortunately it all came up pretty easily by just pulling back the tarp.

 

Next, a trip to Lowe's to figure out which plan we wanted to build and bringing home all the materials.

Opening the first set of boxes, here we go! 

Lots of helpers at the ready.

And pretty soon we have our first wall!

Trying to make heads or tails of these awful directions???

At this point those outrageous installation costs were really starting to seem not so bad.

My silly little goofball.

  

Help with the rock wall.

  

  

The main tower is finally built, now onto the next part of the frame.

It's coming together!

  

And then two weeks went by with no work on the swing set. Why? Because we all came down with a horrible stomach flu, and the weather decided to be WAY over 100 degrees literally every.single.day for more than 2 weeks. It was much too hot!

Finally, we managed to finish the entire swing set! We still have one more double person swing/glider we're planning to put up but haven't managed to get to it yet. We need to anchor the entire beast and fill it in with a ton of sand, but otherwise it's DONE!

 

There's even a little picnic area on the side.

 

It's been so awesome to send the kids outside to play in the back yard and be able to watch them having so much fun on this thing while I enjoy a much quieter house to work on my school work.