Getting into the Swing of Things

A few weeks back we took the kids out to a local store that sells sheds and lawn furniture.  They also sell Swing Sets!!  Now, if you checked priced out swing sets before, you may be surprised to see what options are available.  If your budget and yard allows, you can probably get a $25,000 play palace with multiple slides, houses, tunnels, and cargo nets.   Because of the size of our yard (and budget!) we wanted to keep the swing set to a reasonable size.

After testing out a bunch and reviewing all the specs, we chose one with the features we wanted:  at least 3 swing locations, a play house, a slide, and monkey bars.   To keep the budget reasonable we went with stained wood rather than vinyl clad.  I must say the vinyl was VERY nice  and will last a lifetime, but the cost was nearly double and would have really limited what we could choose.

Once we had put in the order, we sat back and waited for delivery.  We were told 3-6 weeks.  We received a call about 3 weeks later to schedule the delivery and it came yesterday!!!

So when they called to set up the delivery time, they said they would come on Monday "in the morning".  I didn't realize that "in the morning" meant 7am.  Actually after talking to neighbors, we found out that they were there well before 7 AM, and they just waited until then to call us.  The phone rang at 7, waking Jason & I from deep sleep.  I'm honestly not even sure what exactly the guy said, but I remember he said his name was "Daniel" and he said something about a swing set.  So Jason looked out the window and sure enough, they were there.

We scrambled down the stairs to move the cars and deal with a few things in the yard like dog toys and whatnot.  And they backed their flatbed into the driveway.

It was after this that I realized that "Daniel" was some sort of Amish person.

Daniel & his sidekick laid out all the parts to get a sense of where in the yard we wanted the whole thing.

Once we had that finalized, it really only took them about 25 minutes to knock it all together.

They were done and gone before the kids even woke up!

The minute Sarah saw it she ran upstairs and got dressed.  Chris just said "gotta get shoes" and he ran to find his shoes.  Both kids spent every spare moment climbing, sliding and swinging.

And we actually had a handful of neighborhood kids in the yard since there was finally something to do.

I'm so glad we decided to take the plunge, and that we went for an installed swing set rather than a DIY option.  I know putting it together would have been within our capabilities, but having someone else do it was a HUGE time saver.  Hopefully we can put that extra time to good use and make progress on our numerous projects around the house!