Daddy's Birthday Present for the Twins

We mentioned the playscape that Jason built in a previous blog, but, I didn't think that post gave you a full understanding of the playscape...so, I am dedicating a full blog post to it. I was the official photographer of the project and tried to capture each step for you to see.

Here are the plans that Jason drew up for the playscape....he seriously drew them out himself, calculated all the angles and even used a protractor for the sketches and angles. Seriously impressive!

After drawing up the plans and figuring out what supplies he needed, Jason and his dad made a trip to Home Depot. They bought a ton of wood, bolts, screws, and even splurged on a new miter saw. There was so much, they had to rent a truck to get it back home, carried it into the backyard, and made this stack.

Ok, well, the stack doesn't look at big in pictures as it was in real life. On Saturday, August 21st, Jason started the construction of the playscape with the goal of completing most of it by the twins first birthday party. It took a few weekends of hard work during the hottest time of year, but Jason was able to get it built.

Here he is cutting wood with his new miter saw.
The first thing built was the tower base. This was the hardest part and took a lot of math. With our yard being no where near level, Jason had to survey the area and figure out the elevation of all the points where the swing set would touch the ground. There is more than a foot difference between the corners of the tower and two feet between the highest and lowest point in the swing.

I helped in this part of the project by holding the two sides up while Jason added temporary supports. I also helped by frequently telling Jason it was not level despite his level saying the tower was actually level. :) Also, you can see our fence blew over during this time, it's fixed now!
Jason standing on what would be the top of the slide and rock wall.
Rock wall, minus the rocks, is up!
Caden enjoyed being up on the tower with Daddy.
Here is the first time down the slide.
Caden's first time down the slide by himself.
Poppa helped put the roof on. He also helped with the 4x6x12 crossbar that holds the swings. Thanks for spending hours in the heat dad!!
Here is the what the swing set looked like before the party. It is not quite finished. Jason still plans to make a rope ladder (behind the slide in the picture), build a ladder to get up the back side of the tower, something for the third swing location, and someday, we plan to add a tire swing underneath the tower.

This is the twins first time on the swing. Daddy had been working on the swing set and just finished hanging two swings. This was the weekend before the twins first birthday party.
Caden LOVES, LOVES, LOVES swinging. He is so excited and loves going as high as you are willing to push him.

Caroline was not quite sure what to think her first time on the swing. She was tired an needed a nap but she did enjoy watching Caden. Now, Caroline really likes swinging...just not as much as brother.


Here are the grandparents pushing the kids in the swing the night before their party.
Here is a video we made of the twins first time swinging on the swing set.




So far, the swingset has been a HUGE hit with the twins! I am sure it will continue to entertain them for years to come!