Life In M-town: From Grandpa and Grandma, with Love

Have I ever mentioned before what generous in-laws I have? I mean, you'd think they love us or something. Well, this week we got something very special from them. A new playground for our backyard! They ordered it while they were here for Mother's Day. On Wednesday a homeschooling family (father, mother, 2 teenagers) came and installed it in 3 hours flat. They didn't even have to look at any directions. The dad said they had been doing it for 9 years. It would have taken us fo-evah to have done it. Or at *least* 2 very long days assuming there weren't any cute children around to ~~distract~~ help us.

On Thursday we had 13 cubic yards of playground mulch delivered. We've got it spread out pretty well now, but need to make it thicker in some places. We'd also like to get a bench for us big folks to sit on while we're out there supervising the li'l folks.

The playground is in a nice spot as there are trees around. It's pretty shady in the morning and then again in the late afternoon. It had a bit of a slope, but our friend David Gaut (of Gaut Construction Company fame) brought his BobCat over a few weeks ago and leveled it out for us. He also got us a bunch of used railroad ties to use for mulch containment. For FREE! He and his son even spent the good part of a hot Saturday afternoon putting them in place (Doug helped). What a blessing he has been to us!

Here's Claire keeping a safe distance from the BobCat work:

Nice and shady in the morning:

The weather has been gorgeous this week (low 80s w/ clear skies) so we've been outside every day. On Wednesday they spent 3 hours playing on it. They've been a lot more tired lately, begging to take naps and go to bed at night. There's just so much for them to do on the swingset -- 3 swings, a slide, rock wall, 360 degree tire swing, Jacob's rope ladder, trapeze/rings, ship's wheel and binoculars, and a cool little clubhouse.