THE New Hoop :)

We had almost ALL of our trees trimmed last month (and if you've been to our house, you'd know what a monumental job that was!!!). One of the casualties of that job was our in-ground basketball hoop in our front yard.

I'm not sure how old it is or how long it's been there... but just about an hour after ALL the tree trimmers left (I think there were 14 of them here -- working ALL DAY), it said "Oh... it feels so good to be horizontal!" I praised God for sending strong angels that worked hard at holding the hoop up all through the day to make sure that no one (the workers had their lunch break all around the yard, some were right by the pole) and no vehicles (I usually park right next to it, but was in the street to make room for the tree project and our carpool was dropping Isaac off but was spared by INCHES) were hurt!!! I can't even imagine the damage it would have caused if it had landed on someone or some car. Thank you for protecting us, Lord!





All that to say... Matthew went out and bought a new hoop last Saturday evening. On Sunday, after a little nap, Matthew thought HE (by himself) was going to get this thing put together and have a couple of hours of play time with the boys. He started at about 4:30 or so. I went out to check on his progress at about 5:00 when Seth came tearing in the house yelling, "Hey Mom, Dad wants you to charge this battery for YOUR DRILL..." (I was catching up on some of my Women's Ministries "responsibilities" :)). When I got outside, I found every tool box out and opened, bags of nuts and bolts and screws, poles of all shapes and sizes, and other unidentifiable pieces all spread out on our driveway and on the lawn -- and my husband on his hands and knees pouring over the Book of Instructions (should have gotten a picture!!!). He looked up and said... "I need your help... these papers told me that this is a 2 person job." With that, I changed out of my Sunday dress and heels and sang out, "Here I come to save the day..." Well, you get the picture :)

If you know me for any length of time, you'd know that I am the queen of DIY :). Or at least, I'm always game for a good project... even a challenging one. I looked at all the stuff on our driveway, full of confidence that we will be able to finish this project in no time (even without the aid of the power drill) and plunged in. After looking at the instructions, I understood why Matthew was on his hands and knees with a furrowed brow... the instructions were very poorly written -- the steps were unclear, the pictures were horrible, the parts were unlabeled, and the language... um, probably directly translated from Chinese??? We completed 2 steps on this 38 step project and came to a screeching holt (we needed to put some self-tapping screws into the pole that had no pre-drill). Hmmm... probably not going to happen without a power drill. So, Matthew decided that this was the PERFECT TIME to go over to Dad's and take out the trash (they are gone for a bit) and to borrow some tools :) Thanks, Dad! I'll make sure that they are returned promptly.




Now fast forward an hour... we realized that we hadn't heard from our kids in a LONG TIME (never a good sign). We found them working diligently together(!!!) on a fort, right next to their playhouse. Hmmm... ok, I can live a fort today. They are being creative and productive. They are working together toward a common goal. Life is good right now... so hurry, let's get back to work!

Another hour went by... Oh no!!! We haven't fed the kids! It's already 7:45!!! "Hey, guys! Come on in and wash up! Here's some food on the counter! Pick what you want to eat and then go take a bath..." Probably not the best parenting model, oh well.

By 8:30, I told Matthew that it was time to call it a day. No, we didn't finish :( but we made lots of progress. Besides, it's a bit hard to attach screws into poles when you can't see the screw nor the pole!



Anyhow... we did finally finish it yesterday (Monday). It looks pretty and is still standing :) I think we did everything right (or to the best of our abilities). When I asked Matthew how long he thought it was going to take him to put this together... he said, "An hour." Hmmm... I think he measures "project time" like his daddy :)

I hope this basketball hoop will last us a long long long time. I don't have any desire to have to assemble another one of these any time real soon. The brand name is Lifetime. I hope that means it will last us a lifetime, not that we would regret this purchase for a lifetime :) But for now, we love it!!!