A Long Weekend

My friend, Molly, planted a seed in my brain.  A big ugly eye-sore of a seed.  She got a trampoline for her kids. 

Fast forward to Rich and I realizing that our old, second-hand playset out back (whose slide broke twice last year, whose awnings were torn, and whose boards were leaning and bowing) needed to be taken down as not to permanently maim the children. 

Couple that with the fact that we're trying to lay low, save some money, and not go on a big beach vacation this year, and that little seed Molly planted started to grow...

"What if, instead of spending the money we saved for a little weekend trip somewhere (which we were planning in lieu of our big beach trip), we spend that time and money on making our backyard into a summertime funzone for the kids?", I asked Rich one night. 

He liked the idea of giving them a whole summer of fun and good memories instead of a single cool weekend somewhere, and also thought it best to put off the tetanus and broken arms that would surely result from another summer on that ragged old playset.  So, after talking it over with the kids, we declared it the summer of the Cole family stay-cation. 

Rich found a really great deal on a big monstrosity of a trampoline, and I found the absolute most awesome and cutest sandbox/beach area to put beside it. 

Rich had been working all week on the playset demo, so that part was done.  So Friday evening we went shopping.

And Saturday we built. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I LOVE that sandbox.  We used this blog as inspiration and a loose guide, and we all adore how it turned out.  It's sweetness offsets the giant ugliness of the trampoline...at least I hope it does. 

 

We also switched things up on the porch, put our bistro set under the tree by the sandbox, brought the kids' play kitchen up from the basement and put it under the pergola, put our sunbrella over the pond and one of our lounge chairs...it's a backyard bonanza of fun (and shaded supervisory areas) up in here. :)

 

For Memorial Day we headed to Newcomerstown for a family BBQ.  I didn't get any photos at Mom and Dad's, but some of us took a little trip to see the local bald eagles.  So cool.  We didn't get a glimpse of the parents, but the babies were in the huge nest waiting for lunch.  My camera's zoom sucks, but the nest is in the middle of the pictures below. 

 

 

Such a great holiday weekend. Hope you all had great ones too!