Neuberger Family News: Swings. Slide. Sandbox. Summer?

This weekend was so productive! I love those weekends when I feel that we get so much accomplished!! The weather was warm (though windy), and the thunderstorms held off, so we took every advantage of the summer-like weather. Thanks to friends of ours (and fellow co-worker of Tom's), the kids received an awesome swing set for our back yard. The Wilsons' kids had out grown it and they were so generous to give it to us, plus help Tom disassemble it, transport it about 2 miles, and then reassemble it. Jackson and Morgan are loving it! We do need to replace a couple of the swing attachments soon, pressure wash it, and apply a new coat of stain, but overall it is a great set. And did I mention, it was free! So of course it is great! Today is another beautiful day and I hoped that we could get out to play on it again, but unfortunately Scott's was here to apply fertilizer and they recommended keeping everyone off it for 24 hours...So we will wait another day to go play some more.

A couple weeks ago, Tom started a project to make a sandbox for the kids. So since the weather was so nice and since we were already working in the yard to get the swings up, Tom took the opportunity to finish this project too. He dug out a place under the deck where we put the sandbox and loaded it up with tons of sand. It is a perfect little place for the kids to play and when it gets really hot in the summer, they can hide out there in the shade. Jackson and Morgan had a ball with it once it was in place... I think I found sand in all their pockets, underwear, socks, diaper, hair, etc. Crazy kids! Now we just need to get a few sand toys...thankfully the Easter Bunny found some really cheap ones last week, so they will soon have more to play with in the sand.

And I also took the opportunity to start doing a little gardening. I started cleaning out a bunch of the flower beds (they need lots of help). Tom also pulled out a couple of dead trees that were awkwardly placed in the yard. And Morgan and I ran to Stein's and Home Depot to get some plants and potting soil. We brought all of our large ceramic pots with us from Snoqualmie and I am ready to get some things blooming in them! I just hope the weather continues to cooperate and warm up so we can continue to make progress in our yard (because it needs some work).

Next projects on our to-do list will be to to pressure wash and stain the deck and then start on putting in a new patio at the bottom of the deck stairs. I think we will move some of the pebble rock that is down there now over to where the swing set is. Then we will either pour a cement patio or put in pavers... got to keep it easy on the pocketbook! We really wanted to put in a garden this year too, but we just have too many other projects that we want to do first in the yard. So the vegetable garden will have to wait until next summer.