Fences and Swings!

Once we moved into our new house there were a few things that had to get in place to make thinks safe for the kids and help me keep my sanity.  One was getting a fence set up so the kids (Joel) did not try to run through the field and past the electric fence and horses to get back over to grandma’s house.  He had tried a few times before we put the fence up.  The second thing was getting the swing set all set up and ready for the kids.

Joel and Vincent helping Efren roll out the fence.  I LOVE this picture!

Vincent thought pounding the post in was too loud!

Brad was busy spraying in the field for the first week or so after we moved in, timing for spraying in fairly important so other things need to wait.  His time was not readily available.  Bob and Efren had some free time on their hands, or were nice enough to make time to take down the temporary fence at the farm and put it up at our house.  Then I could let the kids play outside and I was able to not worry about them running off.  The kids were really interested in what Uncle Bob and Efren were doing and were right out their wanting to help.  The guys were kind enough to let the kids “help” even though the kids were slowing them down a little bit.
 

Joel was helping hold a fence post

Uncle Bob working hard!

When the swing set was moved I wasn’t home.  I had a whole day of appointments for the horses, and myself and missed out on seeing the big move!  Before the move could even happen Craig had to remove several trees from the yard in order to get the trailer with the swing set backed into the yard.  Then Craig lifted the swing set with the excavator while Brad and Efren were on top of it.  Brad has a short movie clip of the move.

Craig driving the excavator and removing trees

The swing set is in place!

Brad in the excavator bucket installing a bracket for the swing bar.

Once the swing set was moved it took a couple days of leveling, stabilizing and getting the bar up for the swings.  In their great wisdom they decided instead of having the bar the holds the swing be 12 feet off the ground that 18 feet would be much better and you would be able to swing higher.  Sounds like a great idea right?  I didn’t think so.  It seemed like over kill and I liked the way the swings worked before.  I do have to admit that you get a nice smooth slow sweeping ride on the swings now.  The kids are going pretty high and don’t even seem to notice it and just keep asking to go higher.  The problem is they slow down a lot faster.   I used to be able to give an underdog and then not have to push the kids for a while.  Now I am running between 3 swings giving under dogs or puppies (Joel) or undie dogs (Cecilia) as the kids call them.  It is a work out!

Brad in the excavator bucket

Joel and Cecilia checking out the completed swing set!

Another problem with the swings is that pumping seems to do nothing.  I wanted to swing and had to sneak out of the house to do it by myself.  I wanted to swing by myself to see how high I could get the swings to go.  I pumped and pumped for all I was worth and really wasn’t going very high, at least not as high as I could go before.  I was really disappointed, Brad had to come out and push me so that I could swing higher.  I felt like a little kid.  Brad thought I was being dramatic, so he tried to see how high he could swing.  He couldn’t swing that high with just pumping either, so I had to push him.  Now he believes me and neither of us can have fun with the swings without someone around to push us.  I am working on getting Craig to try out the swings to see if he can come up with something to solve our problem.  I would vote to just lower the bar if I didn't know how much work it took to put it up there!

We mostly have movies of them swinging...I stole this picture from a movie clip!

P.S.  Most of the summer when we weren't leaving our property I let the kids dress themselves.  Hence the wonderful mismatched and other odd clothing you see them in in some of the pictures!