July 6, 7 & 8

For birthdays this year, we decided to consolidate with a larger, joint gift for all three monkeys. Our playground had served its time well, but was beginning to show its age. The duo had outgrown the swing set completely, and the upgrade was definitely necessary. There were a couple of features that were simply worn out. We started researching the project weeks ago and settled on a playset through Costco. We ordered it and coordinated delivery a month later, on July 8th.

Understandably, the installation requirements are carefully instructed in order to minimize the incident of injury, and we intended to follow those recommendations completely. (Don't ever Google incident frequencies.) Therefore, we broke down and removed the old playground, an old playhouse, chairs, etc., and we hired an excavator to level the area for the playset.  Also, we had two trees cut down and cleared.  This work occurred over the course of ten days, and crunch time really occurred on July 6th and 7th, when it looked like our delivery date of the 8th was in jeopardy.

Everything worked out in the end, and we ended up with the playset in place in time for William George's birthday.

By comparison, here (and here) is the old playground. When the girls were little, we had gotten mixed reviews on playground equipment. A full fifty percent of our friends, acquaintances and strangers we chatted up were opposed, indicating that their children never used them. In addition to that empirical evidence, we have the luxury of living a mere two miles from the park. Still, we felt that every child should have a swing set so we invested in a modest, metal swing set, figuring if they didn't use it, we had not made a major investment. Poppa put the thing together for us, and he and Gran mulched in the area. Our total investment was less than $300, and the girls loved that swing set dearly. Loved it, I tell you. We were considering an upgrade when William George was born, but held off because some of the platform-type sets can be a little challenging for toddlers. When it came time to dismantle the old playground, the trio gathered around and were very sad to see her go.

Watching the trees go down and calling out "Timber" helped the process a little.

By the way, the trees were diseased and leaning dangerously, and we did not want them falling on the house, deck or new play ground. Otherwise, we would have kept them.  After the trees, the backhoe arrived on the scene and began digging/leveling to within a 3 degree grade.  For anyone who has seen our sloping yard, you will understand what a challenge that can be.

But then the rains came, and the backhoe sat for a few days on end. We were really missing the old playground about that time. Finally, on July 7th, the area was flattened, turf was moved to build up other areas.  Importantly, we were ready for installation when the set was delivered on July 8th. We watched this poor guy work all day in the heat on the 8th and half a day on the 9th put the thing together.  Skip did not miss an opportunity to procure more mulch, and we spread mulch after the installer left on the 8th. When he wrapped up on the 9th, we tested the swing set with some inaugural swings.

The (quasi) finished product:

We still need to edge the area, install a border and put some finishing touches in place, but this is the only part the trio care about. So far, it's a big hit and definitely worth the wait. We are firmly "pro" playground and any/all outdoor play opportunities.