Bit off a little more than we could chew…

…or screw as the case may be. We’re in the process of building a swing set. We’ve had money earmarked for a swing set for a couple years now. We haven’t bought one yet, mainly because we didn’t think we’d still be living in this house. But we’re still here, and I don’t think we’re moving any time soon, so we decided this is the year for the swing set.

So I go and get the thing and the store guy laughs at me when I tell him I have a minivan to take it home in. That should have been the first sign that this was not going to be an easy task. But, I assure him my van is super long and he decides to humor me. So, it only hung out the back about 3 or so feet. No problem. Take that, store guy! We get home, we’re good to go.

I start taking the swing set out piece by piece because the boxes weigh at least 200 pounds each. There are a bazillion parts at least. What have I gotten myself into? 2 hours later and I have all of the parts laid out and labeled according to the diagram in the 122 page instruction manual. I start assembling the slide: phase 1 out of 24. While I’m not looking, Parks has disassembled my neat little alphabetized piles and brought several pieces of wood over to me to “help”. I just love helpers.

Aaron gets home a short time later and is able to assemble 4 out of the 24 phases in a couple of hours. 1 day of swing set building down, only about 17 more left. What was I thinking, seriously?

So today I’m anxious to go out and get working again, and what do I find? SNOW!!!! Snow is covering everything, including my meticulously laid out, alphabetized piles of boards. Ugh. Maybe by Labor Day we’ll have a swing set. This is what it should look like when we're done:

Wish us luck.