A Swingset in the Backyard

For Mallory's second birthday, we wanted to get her a backyard swing set. Once we started doing some research we learned we would have to save up for a while before we could afford to get a decent one. We wanted to be sure the one we purchased would be small enough for her to enjoy now, and big enough for her to enjoy it in the years to come. Christopher has put a lot of time and effort into researching which play set would be the best for our situation, and had pretty much settled on purchasing the Playstar system from Menards. That is until I had a conversation with my dad about buying a used one.
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To be honest, I was leery, and very against buying a used swing set. You just never know with anything used and I wanted to be sure the apparatus my daughter and her friends were going to be crawling on and over and under and through, would be safe. My dad put my worries to rest with his comment of "I got screws and a drill for that Krystal". I love my Dad.

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So onto to Craigslist I went. I wasn't sure if I was going to find anything, when all I saw, over and over was "RAINBOW PLAY SYSTEM GENTLY USED - $5,000". Okay, I know all about the Rainbow Play Systems, their quality, their reputation, but if I had $5,000 laying around, sorry Mallory, it would not be put towards a swing set. I found a couple of listings, here and there, for a swing set, jungle gym type product, in our price range, but they were all old, dingy and in pieces. I kept checking back, and all of a sudden, there it was, "Jordan, MN, five years old, probably a Playstar System from Menards, in good condition, used play system. You disassemble, cash only". WOO HOO!

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Off we went, Dad's truck, trailer and our friend Pete in tow, to help with disassembly and transport. I was even more pleased when I saw the system in person. It has been well taken care of and the previous owner actually added the canopy onto the system himself. The disassembly took some time, but were were able to get the system on to the trailer in a few major pieces and off to Farmington with no major problems. Oh and Mallory got to jump on their trampoline while the guys were working.

Here is the play system as it sat in the previous owners backyard.

Here are few pics of the disassembly and loading it onto the trailer.

Ready to roll!

All in all, the move went real smooth, with no snags or issues. Once we got the system home, we had no real plans to put it together right away, we just wanted it in our backyard, so we can work on it one day at a time. Well, Sunday rolled around it was nice enough outside, Christopher and Pete took to it, and ta da! We have a "new" play system in our back yard for Mallory!!!!!

She was ready to give it a whirl and enjoys it very much. She calls it her "park" and cried when we told her it was time to be done playing and go inside. Even though it was raining out, she wanted to play and play. I feel like we were very fortunate to have found such a nice play set for Mallory and hope she and all of her friends enjoy it for years to come!