What do you do when you have a big area in your backyard that doesn't grow grass...
...plus five grandchildren of varying ages, shapes, and sizes?
Why, you buy one of these, of course!
It arrived at my parents' house on Wednesday, so they decided to have a very last-minute cookout slash birthday party for my brother. Want to know how to torture a five-year-old? Invite him over to play on the new playset before it's been put together. The poor little guy just had to sit and wait.
Although I think it ws torture on my dad too. I really think he wanted to give them a hand instead of just standing and watching.
Jett showed me all of his silly bands while we waited. He has lots of them, but the little stinker traded my favorite pink pig one!
I told him I was going to get him for that so he tried to hide from me. My camera still found him.
And then finally, finally, the playset was ready!!
A really big boy was on this side of the swing...
...and a much smaller boy on the other.
I learned that I apparently don't have any upper body strength because I can no longer do the monkey bars. I'll just have to stick to helping the little people.
When you were little, did you and your friends make "trains" and go down the slide together? My friends and I did. It's a lot harder to do now that I have big-girl hips. We might've gotten stuck around the first "hump" of the slide.
If your mom takes whatever you just picked up off the ground away from you, it might hurt your feelings.
The playset has a mini picnic table for all the little kids, so my dad built a regular-sized picnic table for all of us bigger people.
I think the birthday boy enjoyed his dinner.
And these two guys enjoyed a good game of cornhole.
So it's safe to say the last-minute cookout was a success and that the new playset is a hit. We've already logged several hours on it this week and I have a feeling there will be lots more logged this summer. There's still lots more work to be done - we plan on framing out the play area with railroad ties and then adding gravel/mulch. And there's also been talk about adding a seesaw.
We would also like to name our "playground" and this is where we need your help. If you know our last name, that could be used in it. And my parents are called Mimi and Poppy by the grandkids, so those could be used too. Here's what we've come up with so far:
- Poppy's Playground
- Poppy's Play World
- Never Never Land
- S----- Center (last name - I think this sounds more like a mental institute myself.)
- S----- Sunday
- S----- Park
I'm not sure any of these feel right. Does anyone out there have any suggestions?