April 11, 2010

Swing Set!

Posted in News, Pics at 8:58 pm by Eric

As a gift to Elexa and Abe for their upcoming birthdays, we got a swing set/clubhouse! With this many kids, a nice jungle gym thingee is almost a must, don’t ya think? Well, we decided to put it up a few weeks before their birthdays so they could maximize the fun! The tricky thing is that I’m not all that handy when it comes to using tools, building stuff, and generally doing anything that doesn’t involve a computer or a calculator. Haha! But of course I didn’t let my lack of skills overpower my cheapness (and possibly [definitely] a little ego)! What? Pay somebody to assemble it? It costs HOW much? No way! How hard can it be anyway? Ha! The instructions said that it takes 2 people 8-10 hours to assemble the thing… took me 10 hours with 2 people (actually 4 people for a couple of those hours) plus almost another 4 hours for me to finish it by myself. Yep… like 14 hours. Speaking of numbers, here are a few others significant to the job:

3 – the number of people I owe a great deal of thanks to for their help!
6 – the number of body parts that are sunburned to a crisp after all that time in the back yard.
2 – the number of days we took to build the thing AND somehow managed to keep the kids away from the windows and the back yard — it was a secret the WHOLE time! All the credit goes to Jill!!
1 – the number of trips to Lowe’s, which is surprisingly low for a guy who has a minimal amount of tools.
2 – the number of pre-treated pieces of wood that Vinny decided weren’t “treated”enough… with a hind leg lifted to the heavens, he christened them!
10,000 – the number of times I forgot to switch the drill back to a clockwise spin yet still tried to drill a screw in.
10,000 – the number of times I was laughed at for said drill faux pas, and rightfully so!

But it was ALL sooooo worth it when we did the big reveal this afternoon. The kids went crazy when they saw it!! Here are some pics from the unveiling of the new addition to our back yard: