Our New Swing-set!

Last Christmas, our family present from Nana was a check to go towards a swing-set for the girls. This spring starting in March, Thomas worked super hard on making our front yard - which, like our entire lot, was a very big mess - accessible and safe for the girls to go and play. We cleared a BUNCH of pine trees, tilled, planted, mulched, and did it all again in May.

Surveying the yard the night before it came... That upper level was full of trees, bushes and other nasty plants last year!

24 hours later!

I had been researching play sets since November, but I had a lot of trouble. The problem seemed to be that the ones in our price-range were only good for 3-8 year olds. Which is great for now, but we really wanted one that would stand the test of time, for the kiddos to be able to play on it even into their early teens if they wanted. I thought I had a decent one tracked down at Costco, but the DAY I went to go purchase it, they sold their last one. I was so so sad - finding a set had been extremely stressful for me, and Thomas was so focused on the yard that he had shown no interest up until this point. Meggy of course had a lot of opinions, and I know what I was looking for, but just couldn't quite find it.

The slide is on the 5ft platform

The night that I was driving back from Costco, I remembered that I had seen a few sample play-sets at this business off the main road on our way home. I almost clipped a school bus, and turned onto the road this business was on. It was closed, but they had some BEAUTIFUL, TALL sample play-sets in the front, and I was totally sold. I made Thomas go by the next day on his way home from work, and he picked up some catalogs. These sets were were quite a bit higher than the price range I was looking at, but they made Thomas excited. Instead of some little swings and a slide, here were rock walls, monkey bars, and 10 different kinds of swings!

the basic swings are still my favourite

We took a couple months to decide on what we wanted, with each of us compromising quite a bit on the finished product, but we both love what we ended up with. Unfortunately our yard is extremely narrow on the only level part, so the set ended up being a lot closer to the house than we thought. Also, we weren't given correct measurements, so when I told the delivery guys where I wanted the set, it technically was where I had wanted it, but I didn't realize what that meant. We may ask a few friends to come and help move it at some point, but the girls absolutely love the set! It's got 5 spaces for swings, one slide, a rock wall and two platforms with a sailor's wheel, which Wren loves to turn while singing "Drive drive drive, drive drivin' drive drive!" Wren has surprised me with how much she loves this set. Both Thomas and I were unsure how she would initially take the stairs on this thing, as she hasn't seemed to like heights before. But she's a champ, and runs a restaurant out of the set when she's not driving us to target!

Welcome to Wren's Restaurant! the specials are pizza, donuts and lemonade. 

Meggy of course loves everything from the swings to especially the rock wall. She loves to swing on the rock rope, and throw herself down the slide. After an unfortunate incident about 2 weeks before we got the set, she won't do the monkey bars, but that's ok, because she has plenty more years to play with that part!

A big thank you to Nana for contributing to this set, and a VERY big thank you to Thomas for making this entire thing possible with his self-dedication to fix up the wall, and convincing me that this is money very well spent. He was so right. Just look at those smiles!!!