The Ultimate Sandbox

It's Labor Day!  I hope you don't have too much planned in the way of labor today.  In honor of today (and because I have neglected to for almost three months now), I will show you the fruits of our labor we did in days past.  Several days in fact.  Well... it took just over a year to complete.  Not because it actually took that long.  Just lots of 'thinking time' was involved.

Anyways, we built a sandbox!  We got the whole thing framed and filled with sand, but we had no idea how we wanted to finish the 'roof', so there it sat.  For a year.  We knew that shade fabric had to be involved because there is no shade to speak of in our yard, except from 2 - 8 pm on summer days, just below those aspen trees in the back corner.  Which is also where the dirt pit from hell is located.  Along with stubby aspen roots.  Not a fine place to play at all.  So the cool shade made by the aspens is absolutely worthless to us, but the dog enjoys it.  We do have two other trees in the backyard - a maple and a locust.  The maple is doing its best to die.  I think it might actually succeed this winter.  The locust is growing....slowly.... but we planted it in such a weird location that it will be years before it shades anything of consequence.  In the meantime our backyard will continue to be the most unpleasant place to be from May - September.

I dreamed up the idea of a sandbox, thinking that it would be an awesome place to park rowdy kids.  Slap some shade on it and make it big enough to fit all of them so that they would be out of my hair.

Caution!  I did not think this through.  A sandbox in the yard means lots of sand in the house.  And in the mouth...the diaper...the garden...the window well...the drain pipe...the bbq grill.

You've been warned.

We decided to locate the sandbox right in front of the kitchen bay window, so that we would have something 'nice' to look at in the wasteland that is our backyard.  We started building on April 16th...last year.  I wanted the finished size to be 8' x 8' square, so Dean cut the boards and Rylan helped me stain/seal them.

We all helped in the endeavour to remove the sod.  Which wasn't hard because you can't really call the random green patches in our yard, 'sod'.  The ground is as hard as concrete, with lots of divots and several ant hills.  Dean laid out the frame, bolted it, then cut the corner posts and we stained them as well.  If I remember right, they are five feet tall.

The next day (17th) the kids and I excavated down a few inches and carted off the dirt.  When Dean got home from work we filled in the bottom with a couple inches of rock, for drainage.  The rock came from another part of the the yard.  Then we laid down two layers of weed fabric - running in opposite directions.  We picked up the entire frame to pull the fabric all the way up from the underside.

(Colin, 14 mo.)

Look at those chubby cheeks!  I want to bite them!

The peanut gallery...

The following day Colin did this...

And I evidently did this, because that's all I have pictures of...

These were the first books that we rowed with FIAR.  We really did enjoy the process - especially creating watercolors of the Yellow Ball.  I also must have ordered sand on this day, because the next morning, (the 19th), this is what arrived in our driveway...

The 19th was actually a very sad day.  My grandma Betty passed away shortly after the sand arrived.  I remember, because I was shoveling as I was waiting for the news.  Grandma's health had deteriorated quickly in the previous days, and we knew the end was imminent.  The shoveling really, really helped me focus instead of falling to pieces with grief and frustration because I wanted to be there with her.  Grandma lived three hours away, and there just wasn't time to get there.  She was also unaware of her surroundings, by that point...and it would have been inappropriate to bring all of the kids.  But I still wanted to be there, to hold her hand as she slipped away.  Gosh I miss her...

(and this is probably why I have waffled on writing this post - I don't like to think about it)

Anyway, I shoveled, carted and dumped all of that sand in just a couple of hours.  In the following days we did some school (the middle part of the art project), enjoyed some snow, installed a new sink and celebrated Easter at home because everyone was sick.  But at least Owen got outside on Easter Sunday (the 24th) to play a little in the sandbox.

And then May and June came and went.  In July Dean worked on drainage issues in the area between the sandbox and the house - he installed a French drain to deal with soggy ground.  And the kids, of course, played in the mud.

Evidently, as you can see in the picture above, Dean completed the cross pieces to complete the upper portion of the frame.  I think he did that shortly after the funeral, but I don't remember - and I don't have any pictures of it.  But this is where we remained stuck.  We knew we wanted to top it with shade fabric.  But we were stuck on how to go about it.  There needed to be some sort of framework for the fabric to be attached to so that it wouldn't sag or rip away in the wind.  It also needed to be removable, in the winter time.  And stuck we were... for a whole year!  And there was another problem as well.  The area between the sandbox and the house used to be covered in rock.  I hated the rock and we eventually removed it - ultimately using most of it in the sandbox for drainage.  What remained was dirt.  Which would promptly turn to mud any time water was applied.

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Since nobody was very fond of the clean-up process, we needed to solve this issue.

 

 

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Aha!  Now we're getting somewhere...

 

And finally inspiration hit.  We were actually surfing the web looking at pergola ideas when a roof design popped up that Dean was pretty keen on.  So he went with it...

 

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I poked fun at the math that was involved...

I made a plastic template for the pattern needed for the shade fabric.

 

My zucchini and pumpkins finally sprouted after four weeks in the ground...

 

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And then, as soon as we got back from vacation to OKC, we finished it.  One evening I pulled out the plastic template that I had made, we laid out the shade fabric on the kitchen floor, and cut out four triangles.  I sewed along the seams, and made a seam large enough to accommodate metal conduit along each edge.  I used heavy-duty nylon thread and double-sewed everything.  The next morning we stretched the fabric out, cut the conduit to length and notched the inside of each crosspiece.  The fabric is pulled tight, and the tension between all of the sides holds it in place.  When winter arrives, all we have to do is pull the conduit down on one side to release the bar, and then all of the other sides will release and we can store it until next year! 

 

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One way to ease the amount of sand coming in the house is to place a bucket of water near the door.  The kids dunk their feet in the water to rinse the sand away, and then wipe their feet off before stepping inside.

 

I have no answers to the dilemma of sand in the diaper.  You're on your own, there....   If you hear of one - let me know!

 

 





Simple Woman's Daybook Entry

 

 

Outside my window... It is just after 7 am and the neighborhood is absolutely quiet, except for the crows.  There is a little cloud cover, so the sun is partially hidden - which means I can have my front blinds open for a short while, at least.  The leaves on the trees are beginning to turn just a bit - and some are even falling!  This year has been so weird - several weeks ahead of schedule, all the way through.

I am thinking... how nice it would be to be out walking right now, since it is so quiet and cool.


I am thankful... for today and tomorrow - the 2 out of 4 empty spaces on the calendar for the month.


From the Learning Rooms...  On Monday we had Rylan's first Suzuki violin lesson.  She learned how to hold the violin at rest and how to hold it when she will play.  It is actually much harder than it looks to find that 'sweet spot' where you can hold it with your chin alone.  You Tube videos have been helping us, along with the photos I took during the lesson.  We went to karate T, W, Th and F - but not yesterday because they were closed for the holiday weekend.  We got some work done, but not nearly what I would have hoped.  Tuesday was thrown off with a Dr. appt.  Normally we would be taking the last week of the month off - which is the ideal time to schedule Dr. appts, but we schooled through it this time, so it couldn't be avoided.  Several new items of curriculum arrived this week for math, science, English and writing.  The rest of the English and history/geography is scheduled to arrive midweek this coming week.  I am looking forward to the next three weeks, where we have nothing scheduled but school and the extracurriculars so we can dig into the new stuff.  Another monkey wrench in the schedule is the fact that we passed a milestone this past week: Owen is no longer napping, so our afternoons just got a lot more interesting.  And noisy.


In the kitchen...  nothing worthy of note, here...  although I am more than ready for wet, cold days and steaming crock pots of stew or chili.


I am wearing... pj's.


I am creating...   finishing the tweaking rest of the school schedule - throwing out the old and putting in the new stuff - it's getting streamlined!


I am going... nowhere - and I love that!


I am wondering... how much longer Colin will continue to afternoon nap. The days seemed numbered...

I am reading... The Magicians, by Lev Grossman.  I've read three pages.  Reading time has been scant these days....  It is our bookclub pick for September.


In the garden... Too many cherry tomatoes to count, but only maybe one or two larger tomatoes.  This season is going down as one of the worst in history.  The corn withered in the latest hotspell of the past couple weeks.  I'm curious about what the potatoes are doing.  I'm tempted to dig, just to find out.  The beets are doing well - I just keep giving them away to my dad.  I suppose it is time to think about fall planting and such, but my heart is just not in it.  I'll give it a couple of weeks.


I am hoping... That we finish the budget this weekend.  It is #1 on our project list.  We haven't had a spending guideline since April, and I hate flying financially blind.


I am looking forward to... My second cup of coffee and a bike ride with the kids later today.


I am learning... About space and Mexico.  It's what we are starting up next week.


I am hearing... Young Blood, by The Naked and Famous. I love the whistling part.


Around the house... Dean swears that he will have time to frame a doorway to the shop area in the basement this weekend.  I told him we HAVE to get the budget done.  We'll see who wins.

I am pondering... an American History curriculum for Jordan called Trail Guide to Learning.  It has a decidedly Christian slant, but with some tweaking, I think I can secularize it enough.  I'm still on the hunt for another option, but this curriculum is pretty hard to pass up.


One of my favorite things... my new iPad.  I just wish I could have some quality time with it!  At least the kids are making good use of it - and so many of the educational apps out there are so cool!


A few plans for the rest of the week... New this week... ballet/tap combo for Rylan and gymnastics for Owen!  Yep - I bit the bullet and signed them up.  The great thing is that both classes run concurrently with karate, and are within a few blocks of the dojo, so I have minimal running around to do.  I feel like a scheduling superstar!


Here is a picture for thought I am sharing...

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A pen for your thoughts...

 

 

I am suffering from "can't think of anything to write aboutitis", so I thought I would pass along a link my husband posted on his facebook page.  As some of you may know, BIC just released a new product - a pen 'designed' for women.  Here is their product description:

 

 

"BIC Cristal For Her has an elegant design - just for Her! It features a thin barrel designed to fit a women's hand. It has a diamond engraved barrel for an elegant and unique feminine style."

 

I first heard about it on NPR of all places, and I thought it was the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard of.  I wanted to have a face-to-face talk with the product development team that thought this one up.  But then I thought about it... pastel-colored shavers, scented shaving cream that is way more expensive than men's shaving cream, well... just about every personal grooming product imaginable - there is a 'his' and 'hers' version.  And 'hers' is almost always more expensive. 

 

For the record, the older members in our family use Tresseme shampoo (and I use conditioner) and the younger members use Johnson&Johnson baby shampoo.  We all use the same body wash, Dial, in a fresh spring scent.  I use my husband's shaving cream - but alas, my shaver's handle is, well... pink.  (It fits the contours of my hand, right?)  But I'll be honest with you - his shavers work better because there's 1-2-3-4!!! blades!  Jordan uses that disgusting line of "Axe" body stink (introduced elsewhere.. )

 

 

Marketers have already designed pink tool boxes complete with pink-handled tools for women, aprons for men (must feature a bbq motif), and who can forget - Joey's 'man bag'.

 

 

 

But writing instruments?  Well.... would I sound like I total hypocrite if I complained that Dean's choice in pens and mechanical pencils are not my favorite?  They are absolutely huge!  He uses those big barrel types - and *yes* they actually are uncomfortable to write with.  But the average-sized pen does just fine, thankyouverymuch.

 

Here is what I prefer, even though I know you don't care in the least:

 

pencil: Ticonderoga pencils.  Perfect softness of the lead, and it erases beautifully.  They are off-limits to everybody else in the family.  MINE!

 

red pen: Pilot, fine point.  I use this pen for writing on any bills or bank statements.

 

blue pen: BIC crystal.  Not the most reliable pen in the world, but I always loved rolling it back and forth between my fingers, feeling the hard edges of the hexagonal shape - it helped me think.

 

 

So now that I have wasted about four precious minutes of your day blabbing about nothing (sorry), I'm about to waste even more of your time. 

 

You MUST go to the Amazon link for these new feminine BIC pens, click on the customer 'reviews' and read through several of them.  They are absolutely hysterical....

 

(the eyeliner one is my personal favorite..)

 



Field Trip: Jasmine Moran Children's Museum

In looking back through our summer pictures yesterday, I realized I totally spaced posting about this place - whoops!  While we were in Oklahoma in late July, Dean's mom suggested that we visit this museum during our stay.  So, we're off to the Jasmine Moran Children's Museum in Seminole, OK - just under an hour southeast of OKC...

As with any Children's Museum, there are a billion jillion things to do there.  There were three indoor areas that were (sort of) themed, and then an outside area that featured a train ride, pirate ship, mini village with streets, gardens and a maze.  Indoor room #1 was the 'unthemed' room.  It featured a cockpit to sit in, an old car, model planes, a dinosaur dig, fish tanks and a blurb about water pollution.  See?  Hard to classify...

And that's it for that room.. it wasn't exactly a hit with the kids.

 

Next we went outside because our train ride time had come...

 

 

It's hovering at around 100F right now...

We had the entire train to ourselves.  So Jordan and Rylan elected to sit right behind the engine.

I've never noticed how they have the exact same squinty-face...

The little boys loved the ship - but it was so hot they didn't feel like playing for long...

Here is the maze.  I, of course, forgot to get a picture of the actual maze.  There was an observation deck in the middle of it so that you could look out over it.

We are heading back inside.  We passed through the village to get back to the museum.  I wish there were little cars for the kids to drive along the streets - now that would be cool!

 

Next we were in room #3, because you travel through it to get to the train (it is in that large yellow building in the picture).  There was no way we could pass through it again (after getting to the train in the first place) without climbing this:

 

And then they played in this:

Which, of course, I took incredibly lousy pictures of... It is a waterway that kids can float rubber duckies down.  They can control the flow and so forth, and also winch up buckets of water.

After that we went into room #2, which was by far the best area of fun in the place.  There were about ten little themed sections for kids to explore: weights and measures, art studio, grocery store, mechanic's garage, schoolroom, bubble room, mirror room, fire station, television studio, Lego racetrack, doctor's office and a couple more that I can't remember...

The kids were immediately drawn to the grocery store...

Jordan checked out Rylan's purchases

Then Rylan had a go.  This little girl had a nice array of food items.  The juice bottles are filled with tissue paper, as are the bags of chips.  I think it would be pretty fun to set up a pretend store at home.   Rylan methodically scanned every single item - but then just gave it back to the customer instead of bagging it herself.  Lazy...

Owen went shopping, too.  He first filled up this basket, and then I wrangled a grocery cart for him - which he then proceeded to fill up with every last apple, orange and banana.  He pretty much cleared out the entire produce section.  He got in line in the checkout and Rylan admonished him for having such a big family to feed.  And then she pretended to scan every. last. item. one. by. one.  The line grew long and kids grew huffy...

And then Owen spotted this...

At this point Rylan came over and started bossing Owen about which jobs he would do and what she would do.  Needless to say, Owen didn't like that.  Aaaaand there you go.  As is typical, our family announces its presence wherever we go...

And then Rylan gravitated to the school room... (as in I forcibly removed her from the garage)

Unfortunately there were no other little kids to boss around in here, so she quickly grew bored with it.  We turned around and found Dean and the boys in the bubble room...

Then Owen and I went over to a free-standing display case that housed a mechanical marble track.  I neglected to take a picture of it, but it was along these lines...

 

 

Owen stood there and studied it for a full twenty minutes.  He was absolutely fascinated!  When I could finally tear him away, we wandered into the mirror room...

 

Owen said, "Look at all the Owens!"



 

 

We had a great time, and the air-conditioning was awesome.  By the end of the afternoon though, Owen was running off in one direction, and Colin in another, so it was time to go.  It took three adults to get four children to the car.  We will definitely visit again the next time we are in OKC!

 

Secondly, IF you were paying close attention, you will notice that Owen's and Colin's outfits changed halfway through the day.  We spent a short while in room #2 before we took a break and left the museum to go to Braum's for lunch, during which both Owen and Colin took a chocolate milkshake bath - hence the outfit change...  caught you not paying attention, didn't I??