The Right Perspective

Saturday, June 02, 2012

All in a Week's Work- Part One


What does a long weekend, record setting high temperatures for May (or July!), 300 pieces of wood, 4,671 screws, nuts and bolts and 27 "simple" pages of instructions, all packaged in a 365 pound box equal?  BIG FUN!!

Yes, this is how Andrew and I chose to spend our Memorial Day weekend....putting together a large wooden playset for the kids.  Oh, and did I mention it was also our 12th anniversary? 

"So, what did Andrew get you for your anniversary?" 
"Oh, a wooden playset and sun poisoning."

"What did you get him?"
"A wooden playset, approximately 76 hours of construction work in record-setting temperatures, a slight sunburn on his neck and absolutely no rest on his long weekend."

And yes, we're still happily married, even though we were both too tired to find and sign the cards we'd bought for one another!




                                      
 Above:  All the pieces carefully sorted.  What you can't see are the millions of screws, nuts and bolts and other accessories in the garage.

 Daddy and his boy...doing "Man Stuff" with power tools.  Could they be any cuter?  (I mean, Manly!)


 A man and his tools.  He was a big helper...when he wasn't running and screaming like a girl every time he saw a bug!


 Pa and Ethan working  hard. 


This picture is slightly out of order, as we didn't get this far on day one.  However, this is the swing beam.


This is the progress after one very long day of work in 95 degree temperatures with virtually no shade.  That tree in background was the only shade we had the entire first day, and it's not that big.   It was hot...and I learned the hard way that I am officially allergic to the sun.   Nope, I'm not joking...I got sunburned on my forearms, neck and ears and then proceeded to break out in little tiny blisters all over the places that were burned.  It wasn't really even a bad sunburn, but apparently I got sun poisoning which is, according to the doctor, an allergic reaction to strong sunlight.  Goodie!

Even a full week later, I still look like I'm recovering from a case of the pox.  It's not pretty.  I might also mention that no one else got sunburned.  Andrew got a mild burn on the back of his neck, but no where else.  I was the only lucky one.

We were very lucky that Grandma and Pa and Aunt Katy were willing to come up and spend last Saturday out in the heat with us.  Pa helped us get a good start on the playset and Grandma and Aunt Katy helped keep the kids occupied when they got tired of "helping".  We all had a good day together and ended the day with an early Memorial Day cookout. 

Stay tuned for the next installment.... 




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