10 July 2011 - Independence Day

After several weeks of traveling this summer, we're home now for a while; and it's a good thing too.  Joanne's garden is officially a jungle and she's already been able to harvest some food.  It's been a very veggie summer for our family.

This summer we've spent time with two different sets of cousins who have trampolines.  The girls have been enjoying them so much, and Joanne has wanted one for a long time so I finally gave in.  I didn't want to do it because there is no flat land in Pennsylvania and I knew the work to level a trampoline site would be significant, but I finally undertook the project on Monday.

 

The girls were excited, and were willing helpers as we put it together.

Jessica was particularly helpful in putting up the net.

With the assembly done (which took about an hour), it was time to level the ground (which took more than five hours).

 

I dug out turf on the high side of the hill and the girls helped me move the pieces of sod to the lower side of the hill to make things match a little better.  Then I used left over pea gravel from my patio project (which still isn't done, by the way) to fill and level the site.  It actually helped to have the girls jump on the trampoline to get the gravel to settle.

After the gravel was all in and the site was level, I mulched in the area behind the trampoline to the edge of the hill to make mowing easier.  Madeline kept using the spring pad as leverage to climb on the trampoline, so the last task was to add a ladder.  I was not satisfied with the price and quality of the trampoline ladders I was finding online and around town, so I made this one, and I'm pretty pleased with the outcome.  The girls have been having a blast with their new toy.

Dirty, tired and exhausted from a day of setting up a trampoline, we headed over to a cookout and fireworks party with some friends in the ward.  The kids got a kick out of doing some really smoky sparklers, and I was just glad to have a place to sit down and some good food to eat.

Emily really go into the groove.

After a couple of hours at the cookout party, we came home to a different firework party with our neighbors in the cul-de-sac.

 

And the kids did even more smoky sparklers.

So we had a great, but busy, Fourth of July.  The rest of the week we did thing around the house.  I've been working hard on my patio (pictures next week), and Joanne helped me finish up some inside work so there is no longer a wall of shame:

It's been extremely hot all week, and the city pool just reduced the price of a family pass, so Joanne decided to buy one.  On Saturday, we decided to cool off in the afternoon.  I even rode the waterslide with the kids.  I went first and then grabbed the camera.  Down came Madeline...

Down came Emily...

Then down came Jessica...

It was an excellent summer week.