New Pool!

Friday morning, we showed MJ the new playhouse I found for him. On our way to library story time awhile ago, I noticed a neighbor was throwing away a Little Tikes playhouse. The door was missing, but otherwise it was fine. It wouldn’t fit in the minivan, so I dragged it over the common area grass behind our homes back to our house. It was quite a work out; but well worth it. I think I’d pay $45 for one of those used. MJ likes it a lot… I’ll have to take some pictures. There were crickets jumping around in it, so he had fun learning about this new bug.

Later Friday morning, I was inspired to think about Christmas. Which then made me think of my old favorite hobby – craigslist. So, while the boys were napping I looked into Little Tikes playgrounds and found 4 of my favorite style (the 8 in 1 Playground) listed. 2 had been purchased, and the cheaper of the two that were left was being picked up on Saturday, but the seller said I could come get it Friday night if I wanted it. So, I grabbed my boys and we headed on our 3 hour adventure to get it. It is a large playground with 13 pieces. We fit all of the pieces in the Odyssey with the 2 kids in car seats. I LOVE our minivan!

Saturday morning: Mario had a work call from 9-11 and it was a nice morning, so I thought I'd clean out the garage a bit. Joey hung out on a blanket in the front yard while MJ played with cars and other things. Our street isn't very busy, but I'm so glad MJ knows not to run in the street. We got rid of a few things, yay, and I thought I'd clean up the inflatable pool I rescued from the trash. The same neighbor who got rid of the playhouse was also throwing the pool away. It was wet when I picked it up, so I figured it must have been used recently, and something might be wrong with it. It turns out that the screw on cap for the inflatable entrance to the bottom ring was missing... thus not allowing any air to stay in. I thought we would be able to find something in our house to make it work, and sure enough, we did. I got two salad dressing caps from the fridge and one of them actually screwed on. The top ring (not the salad dressing lid) has a slow leak, but otherwise the pool works great.
Mario and I tried it out before the boys - though we weren't in bathing suits. MJ was napping while we were filling the pool and hanging outside with Joey. Mario just couldn't resist dunking me in. I was proud of myself for turning the hose on him and getting him almost as soaked as I was. Then MJ got to try it out, and he seems to like it. The slide between the pools is kind of fun. And the pump to our inflatable air mattress fills the pool quite nicely. There's even a water inlet so that you can hook a hose up and have water spray onto the pool. We are going to have fun in these last hot summer weeks!

We found we enjoyed our tiny backyard even more now that we have more to do out there. Joey really likes sitting outside. Well, he's a happy guy pretty much all the time, but it's a new environment for his happiness. He likes to pull the blanket back and grab at the leaves and grass (which of course he tries to eat).