yard « Happy. Healthy. Homemade.

Giveaway: periscope attachment for swing set

This giveaway is now closed. The winner is commenter #2, Wade. Thank you!

Is this not a little kid's dream come true?!

This is a Gorilla Swing Set we got for our kids back in March and I can’t even begin to describe how much we all love it. The kids have spent hours playing on it and I’ve spent hours doing other stuff without them telling me there’s nothing to do. It’s a miracle!

These Swing-N-Slide sets are so worth the money. Pretty simple assembly, quality materials, and hours of amusement.

Not shown in this picture, there was a set of binoculars and a telescope that went with the set. We just hadn’t attached them yet- we have now. They’re so cool! We can spy on the neighbors now! The kids can see all the way across the yard!

The only problem is that they are both attached to that rail you see there- which is fine for the five year old but not so hot for the three year old because he’s really short. For a while there, he had a step stool he dragged up there so he could stand on it and look thru the scope but that was making me have mini panic attacks to see my tiny person balanced precariously on a step stool above a ladder… so that had to go. The boy was bummed.

This was taken TODAY, May 31st. It's still cold enough for coats!

So when I was offered the chance to review a swing set accessory, I jumped right on that periscope. As you can see, my little man is pleased with his periscope. Now he gets to look out too without any dangerous acrobatics. And the height adjusts very easily so the girl can use it comfortably also. It also comes out of the attachment bracket thing easily so they can take it all over the yard and play with it. Related: it is exceedingly durable.

If you’re looking for a site with swing sets for sale, make sure you check out the links I’ve got posted in this blog.

And now… my favorite part…. (and yours too, I assume!)…

GIVEAWAY!

The winner gets one periscope identical to the one pictured above.

To enter: Leave me a comment telling me about your favorite childhood summertime memories.

(Do you want to know mine? Laying on the hot patio with my best friend Jen after playing mermaids in the swimming pool.)

The giveaway ends Tuesday, June 7th at 11:59 PM PST. The winner will be chosen using random.org and will be announced here as well as e-mailed. If they don’t respond within 48 hours, a new winner will be chosen. US residents only, please.

Good luck!

The weather sucks but Henry is awesome.

I am so tired of the rain! I don’t think I say that very often as it doesn’t usually rain much here. It’s raining way more than normal this year and while I am aware it’s great for the ground and the plants and the lake we like to go to in the summer… I WANT SUNSHINE. I want to start grilling dinner and eating it outside. I want to go out and do stuff in the yard. I want to not have to have the lights on inside all day to chase the gloom out.

And the kids want sunshine. Now that it’s warm enough, they’d like to go out and play on their giant, awesome swingset without getting wet. So, weather? Please. Give us a little break, eh? Please?

So I don’t think I ever mentioned this but about a month ago we adopted a black lab mix puppy from the pound in Elko (the next town over, going east). His name is Henry. And I think he’s a genius. Besides being adorable, he is really easy to train. He’s already learned to sit & stay, lay down, roll over & shake hands. He’s also housebroken already. He’s very sweet and surprisingly calm. He smells like a dog. He likes to lick toes (EWWW). One of his favorite things to do is chase the cats, especially the black & white one whose coloring looks sort of similar to him. Also, he loves me the best which just goes to show you he’s super smart.

Finally!

You may recall my Wal-Mart swing set fiasco of last year? Yes, well, up yours Wal-Mart. We found this on sale for $200 off the regular price on Costco’s website, ordered it near the end of February, and here it is all constructed and in our backyard just a couple weeks later.

Costco… you ROCK.

It’s made by Gorilla Playsets and we are very impressed with the quality. It’s super sturdy and was fairly easy to put together. I mean, it took Tim about 5 or 6 hours of work but the directions were clear and easy to understand. It even has a sandbox in the bottom (we just need to buy sand for it and figure out a way to put a cover on it so it doesn’t wind up being a giant neighborhood cat box).

My kids are thrilled. Now, um, it just needs to stop raining and/or snowing so they can play on it.

One of those multi-topic things. Whee.

You know what sucks? When I don’t update in forever and then I have three million different and unrelated subjects to talk about.

Hailey started kindergarten last week. She loves it! She loves her teacher and she’s already made a couple friends. She’s doing really well, apparently. At least, the teacher hasn’t called me in and told me what a heathen she is. Yet. That’s good. Keegan either naps or complains about missing her while she’s at school. Hailey tends to come home somewhat crabby. I think school wears her out. In fact, she’s crabby right now and I’ve gotten up no less than 30 times during that paragraph, so if it doesn’t make sense, blame the heathen child.

Our garden is pissing me off. Nothing seems to be getting ripe very fast. We have like 934083240 million green cherry tomatoes that have been just sitting there not getting red for a month. Occasionally we’ll get one or two, and then they’re not even that sweet. I don’t know what the heck is going on. I’m not pleased. The peas and potatoes did ok, we’ve got some pumpkins and some broccoli almost ready, but the peppers and cucumbers were a fail. Sigh. We have been doing some research to figure out what to change for next year. For starters, does anyone have the phone number for who controls the weather? The below freezing temps we had in June really didn’t help, I’m sure.

As far as the surgery stuff- everything is fab! I’m not technically cleared to start really working out til next week- I’m supposed to be on light duty, but I did do my first ab workout today. I couldn’t do too many reps and it was hard, but I did it. I still need to find some sports bras before I can run. I don’t want black eyes.

I meant to take an updated belly pic but I’m fairly swollen today (I am sure the 2 lbs of cookie dough I just ate have nothing to do with that…. or the ginorm serving of boeuf bourguignon I had last night at dinner… also, PMSing. Yay.) so here is one I took a couple of days ago. It’s not really that red around the scar, that was just an impression from my pajama pants- but at least you get the idea. Tummy is flat, scar is not that bad. It’s purple but will fade. I’ve been using Mederma on it, per my doctor’s recommendation.

Yes, I still have stretch marks. Those used to be above my belly button. Turns out, when you’re 5’3″ tall and you gain 60 lbs during pregnancy, you get a lot of stretch marks! Who knew?

I do get a little pain to the left/slightly higher than my belly button when I do too much. And the swelling is funny, it decides on random when it wants to be there and when it wants to go down. That will last several more months, apparently- but I do have to say that even swollen, it still looks so much better than it did before surgery. I’ll probably do another vlog on it next week, since next Weds will be 8 weeks post-op. (wow! Its been that long?! Crazy.)

While I’m on the subject of surgery, I’d love to point something out:

THIS IS NOT WEIGHT LOSS SURGERY.

I mean, really now. It is actually pretty insulting when it’s assumed I did this to lose weight. Kind of minimizes the last couple of years I spent working out hard and getting in shape. A tummy tuck is to remove loose skin after the weight’s been lost. I’ve lost a grand total of five pounds since surgery. So. If you’re looking for weight loss surgery, tummy tuck isn’t what you need.

Ok then. I will now go see why my kids are being so quiet. Wish me luck.

The garden and yard

Despite my best efforts at ignoring it, my garden finally decided to take off. Since everything else was starting to grow, we went out and got a couple more tomato plants and planted them too, because what’s a garden without tomatoes? The issue is, the weeds have also taken off. They’re out of control! I should weed it more often, and better but it would seriously take hours. The garden space is huge and it’s just COVERED in weeds. It’s really bad. So we get out there once a week and just get the ones that are closest to the plants. Next year, we’ve got to do something different because it’s just ridiculous. We’re thinking of building boxes next year and planting everything in the boxes.

Anyway, here’s some pictures of my garden…

Look how cute they are!

Pumpkin plant looking pretty!

Potatoes grow great here. Uh.. so do weeds.

Pea plants! I don't like peas but they're so pretty!

The bugs are digging my broccoli.

So basically all that stuff and some onions are all we are getting. We’ve also planted bell peppers, cucumbers, and watermelons but none of that stuff is growing fast enough, so likely there won’t be any harvest of them before it freezes.

We also planted two raspberry bushes along the edge of the garden and we intend to put in a couple blueberry bushes next year.

Also, Tim built our pergola! We still need to lay the cement on the patio but we’re holding off til next summer. It looks so good though! We’re going to grow some sort of plant that will creep up the side and over the top for shade, we’re just not sure yet.