The new backyard pirate ship

Another Craigslist score! My friend Katie here knew I was in the market to find a used playset for the boys, and she found this one for me on Craigslist. She forwarded the ad to me and I emailed the seller right away. I ended up checking it out the next morning and paying for it on the spot, as it is only a couple of years old and in really good condition. Matt and a couple of his work buddies met me there the next day and they went to town disassembling it. Thanks so much you guys (Matt, Steve and Michael)!!! The day after, my awesome friend Bethany picked me up in her husband's monster truck (Thanks Tim, for the great loaner) and we went over to where the playset was in a pile at the seller's house. Bethany, her son Eli and I loaded it up into the truck and brought it back to our house, where they also helped me unload it into our backyard.

After two coats of stain and solid color stain (which took about 10 hours total to stain the entire thing twice), about 15-18 hours of assembling it in our backyard, a new awning/canopy thing and 200 lbs of sandbox sand (both from Home Depot); Lochlan & Gavin are the very happy and excited little boys who can call this their new pirate ship. It has only been up for a couple of days and they have already covered it in sidewalk chalk and have the sandbox sand all over the yard. They LOVE it and we've been able to get a lot of gardening/planting/yard work done now that they have this beast as a major distraction.