Recently, our pastor’s family sold their home and moved across town to a (fabulous!) new place. Their girls are growing up and they decided that they didn’t want to take their swing set with them when they moved. Soooo they asked us if we would like it! And of course we said YES!
(funny enough, there are some pictures of Abigail using it at their house in this post)
Their moving day was a few weekends ago, so Jim and I went over there to pick up the set. Jim had disassembled it and brought home some of the smaller pieces a few days before by himself, but he needed some help transporting the big beam home.
If you follow me on snapchat then you got to see that hilarity go down. We had planned for me to drive home, Jim to sit on the beam so it didn’t bounce or anything, and tie down the van door. Well, come to find out, I guess the van makers don’t want people doing those sorts of shenanigans(I can’t imagine why) so there was no place to tie down the back door. So, we got to drive the 20 minutes home with Jim literally holding down the back hatch from inside the van as best he could, while sitting on the beam, while I drove us home. Neither of us could hear each other because the wind was so loud, Â and we were shouting to try to communicate, and it was cold, and I was dying laughing.
“COULD YOU NOT ACCELERATE SO QUICKLY?”
“WHAT?”
“COULD YOU NOTTTT ACCELERATE SO QUICKLY?”
“WHY? YOU DON’T WANT TO FALL OUT THE BACK OF THE VAN?” (heh.heh)
“HUH??”
Anyway! The next weekend Jim was able to put it all together! He bought some new wood for the legs, a slide, and a ship wheel, but was able to use everything else they gave us. We have plans to paint/stain it in the future, but for now, Abigail loves playing with it just how it is! And just this week, Grammy sent Miss Mabel her very own baby swing, so now she can get in on the action too!
It was chilly out the morning Jim was assembling the set, but we couldn’t leave Mabesy out of the fun! So we tossed on a beanie, set her in her seat, and let her enjoy watching all of us work together to put together their fun new toy!
And once it was all put together, of course we had to test it out! The slide, swings, and rings all work beautifully. Nice work, Daddy!
This toy has seriously been the best thing ever ever ever in the history of ever. Abigail is outside playing on it ALL THE TIME. I can work in the kitchen, or whatever it is I might need to do and can see her out there just playing to her hearts content.
And the perk of it being fall time is the weather is just perfection outside, so Mabel and I have had so much fun joining her out there too!
We are SO excited about the addition to our backyard, and can’t wait to get many, many more years of fun and use out of this thing!
What a fun gift from your pastor's family! Hand-me-downs like that are the very BEST! I'm sure the girls will love that play set and will get tons of use out of it for years to come. Love sweet little Mabel in her hat watching you guys get it all set up. So cute!
Hooray for free, fun gifts!! I bet you'll get a ton of use out of it 🙂 We used to put a kiddie pool at the bottom of our slide during the summer and have our own little water park haha
I found your blog from Ruthie Hart's blog and have been reading lots of post and am in love with your blog and we have a bunch in common. I had a natural childbirth with my second (and it too was super fast – she was born an hour after we got to the hospital), my son has the MTHFR gene mutation (we don't know yet who he got it from but I suspect me, ha), I saw that you read Outlander (I've read all 8 books in the series and LOVE it)…so basically we should be best friends. 🙂 Anyway, can't wait to keep following along!
We got Ellie a swing set for her birthday and she loves it so much. Hopefully next spring/summer we can get a decent slide to go with it (currently using our 2 ft tall playskool one).
I'm sure your girls are going to get lots and lots of use out of theirs. Ellie just loves hers!
What a fun gift from your pastor's family! Hand-me-downs like that are the very BEST! I'm sure the girls will love that play set and will get tons of use out of it for years to come. Love sweet little Mabel in her hat watching you guys get it all set up. So cute!
We miss our swing set from our last house so much! Hopefully, come spring we'll get new one at this house! The girls will have soooo much fun!
Hooray for free, fun gifts!! I bet you'll get a ton of use out of it 🙂 We used to put a kiddie pool at the bottom of our slide during the summer and have our own little water park haha
Yay for swing sets!! Little J and Little L love ours. And the baby swing is so awesome and so fun for them!
DYING at the image of that van ride. I can only imagine….
So fun!!! Kinsey is promised one of these when we get our own place, heres hoping she'll still be young enough to enjoy it 😉 haha
So fun!! Swing sets are the best inventions, ever. Now if only we had a yard for such fun…
What a nice gift! Swing sets are so fun for that age. And your drive home sounds epic! Glad he didn't actually fall out the back 🙂
How fun! Would have been funny to see all of that going on!
I found your blog from Ruthie Hart's blog and have been reading lots of post and am in love with your blog and we have a bunch in common. I had a natural childbirth with my second (and it too was super fast – she was born an hour after we got to the hospital), my son has the MTHFR gene mutation (we don't know yet who he got it from but I suspect me, ha), I saw that you read Outlander (I've read all 8 books in the series and LOVE it)…so basically we should be best friends. 🙂 Anyway, can't wait to keep following along!
Haha that story is hilarious. Your little ladies are going to live on that swingset!
So fun!!! And I'm not going to lie, I was dying over the story of you bringing it home with Jim – too funny!!! lol
Awww, I bet they love it!!! The things we do for our kids, right?!?
We got Ellie a swing set for her birthday and she loves it so much. Hopefully next spring/summer we can get a decent slide to go with it (currently using our 2 ft tall playskool one).
I'm sure your girls are going to get lots and lots of use out of theirs. Ellie just loves hers!
So cute!!! I wish we had room for a swingset in our backyard. We've been enjoying our neighbor's swingset all summer. This one looks awesome!