Playground Palooza

We spent most of our fourth of July weekend constructing a huge new playground for the kids (and by "we" I mostly mean "matt"). After weeks of researching & reading online reviews and checking out many, many playgrounds, we finally decided which one we wanted to buy. We knew going into it that it was going to take several days to build & so we were prepared....kind of. :)

Day 1
The first day we unloaded the boxes and organized all the wooden pieces. We went over all the packing lists and made sure that all the pieces had been sent. Ironically, we had all the pieces except the instructions! Definitely needed those. So, after a quick trip back to the store to get an extra copy, we were ready to begin.

The kids were so excited. Actually, I'm not sure excited accurately describes how pumped they were!

Day 2

Construction begins. I tried to take pictures along the way so we could remember just exactly how much work went into this project!

The kids loved getting to help when they could. They toted wood from the garage to the backyard when it was needed and placed screws.

Did I mention how tall this is??? The kids are eye level with my kitchen when they're on the second level and look down on me from the third.

Day 3

This day it started to look more like a house. The sides went up....which took Matt a long time to do. He also built the picnic table.

By the end of Day 3 it looked like a house!

Day 4

First the swingset part was installed. That was no easy task!

The rockwall & and ladders were built.

Day 5

The house was finished! Matt installed the slide & attached the rockwall. He added the handlebars and made some other final adjustments. We tinkered with some of the other parts and changed a few things to make it feel a little safer (for our adventuresome 3 year old!).

The finished product!

The kids couldn't wait to play on it!

This is the view from their house. Fabulous!!

Harrison sneezing. Cute.

This is one cool playground! The glider, the rockwall, the awesome slide & 3 levels make for some fun times!

The best part is, what began as Matt building the kids a playground, turned into a fun family project. We spent the better part of 3 days outside all together. Matt actually told me last night that he was a little sad it was over....he'd enjoyed it that much. He said it gave him such pleasure to do that for the kids and have them help & be involved when they could made it even that much more fun!