It was a Tuesday night, and Laura & Kelvin had invited us over for dinner with another couple. I came in as they were talking about a playground our friend Cole had built for a local organization. He had all the wood cut and prepped, all the supplies, and four students helping him put it together the next morning at 9am, but the organization had just told him they couldn’t do it that day.
It was one of those things that just plays out faster than you can think about it–which I say very, very often about our lives.
He came back with four boys and a truckload of wood and tires the next morning at 9am. We did relatively nothing, except leave our door open for them to have access to drinking water & electricity.
Let me just tell you, that is the best way to do home improvement projects.
So we came home to a new playground for the kids!
There were a few tricky days of keeping the kids off the wet paint. Plenty of kids claimed to have not played on it while sporting green smears of paint in their hair.
There were things we didn’t think through, like the location of playground mere feet from our bedroom window. We are greeted each morning around 7am, as the kids come to our “bus stop”–bags and lunches are piled on our porch and children are piled onto the swings.
But hey, that one morning it was 6:30am showed us that 7am isn’t too bad. And giggles and shouts outside the window are better than blood and fighting! It’s all about perspective.
And really, it has been so fun.
It has been a small way to bring some kids and families back to our street after our little community was disrupted nearly 18 months ago. We are seeing faces we have missed and our house is seeing even a new phase as the hub of the neighborhood.
We are so thankful for those who give our House Collective Fund and provided for the playground supplies, along with Kelvin & Laura’s help! Cole also did a great job organizing it all, and has already been back to fix the things the kids break. We are also really thankful for the giggles and smiles filling our yard 🙂
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