That Was Fast

The new trampoline is up.   At Christmas when we installed or put together the first trampoline we had four of us working on it.   It took us hours and we got it done after it had grown dark.   This morning the installer arrived with the boxes in his truck.   He and my husband easily picked up and moved over the existing trampoline and then he got to work unboxing.

I went inside to get the iPad so I could install the app and configure the app while he worked on putting the new, larger trampoline together.  I went upstairs to make some coffee and toast and thought I should take a picture or two of the process of him putting things together since we didn't get that many pictures in December.

I called out to my husband and said, "he's already got all the spring bars in!"  This was fast.   Very fast.   Granted, he knew what he was doing, but he had unboxed and put things together more quickly than I had expected.   The longest part was yet to come, that of tensioning each of the spring bars into the trampoline mat itself.

This part took my husband, two brothers-in-law and me several hours to get done.   I finished making my toast and took that and my coffee over to the sofa to watch a documentary while we waited.   I went back over to the window to see if he was making much progress.

He was done.   He had gotten every one of the spring bars tensioned all by himself in I'd guess less than twenty minutes.   He had the net bars already in place and was putting the basketball backboard in place before raising the net.

I had missed it.   I didn't even get to see how he did that process, by himself, that took four of us to do.   I asked him when I went out to get the game controller box to add batteries and he said it wasn't so much about strength as it was getting the motion down to get each spring bar placed into the pocket.  

I took a picture of the now almost complete installation beside our first trampoline for size comparison and then finished the configuration of the game module while he put the sensors in place to track the jump motion.

I love it.  We already have neighbor children who are out of school today like my son is, come over to try it out.  When they take a break, I'm going to check it out myself.   In the meantime, I updated our trampoline rules flyer and my husband laminated it and then affixed it to the base beside the zippered door

My mother and I head off to get my daughter just as school is out in order to get her home so she can be one of the first to jump on it.  I predict it's going to be a busy weekend in our back yard.

The Big Boy Update:  My son is with our sitter, Blake, today.   The two of them have been jumping on the trampoline and now are doing some video game activity.   I told my son it was okay if he wanted to play some games, but that he needed to take a break and do something that included Blake.   I know Blake likes video games, but watching someone play is interesting only for a short while.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  I'm anxious about the unexpected addition of the games system with the new trampoline.  It came with the larger model and is quite nice with a whole collection of games for children.   I don't think my daughter will be able to do any of them though, and that might make her angry or upset if her friends want to play a game she can't participate in.   I'm going to try out the options this afternoon before we go and get her to see if there are any that would work for her.   The good news is the controller isn't on the trampoline by default because you don't want to get the screen wet.   It will be inside and we can bring it out when it's asked for.   I would normally be excited about the addition of an unexpected feature, but I don't like anything that highlights my daughter's disability, and this may do just t