Sandbox

Growing up, we had one area of our yard that my mom gave us free reign in. We called it the playhouse, even though there wasn't really a house, just an area defined by trees. We dug out there all the time. When my baby brother Ethan got big enough to dig, he put us all to shame. He dug HUGE holes, and my mom didn't care a bit. I remember looking out the window with my mom at Ethan in the playhouse. All you could see was his head sticking out of his hole, and my mom said, "Every little boy needs a place to dig."

Fast forward a decade or more, and I have a little boy who loves to dig. But alas, in our yard, there was no place for him to dig. I'd watch him out with his trucks, digging in my front flower bed. I tried to get him to stop, but I knew that he needed a place. We bought him a sandbox for his birthday a year and a half ago, but it was not good enough. This spring, I insisted that it was time to build a bigger one. We looked up plans online for one where the cover would fold up into benches, went to Home Depot for wood, and made one. I should say Brian made it, and I watched, though I did help a little bit. We altered the plans a little to fit the space better (making it 6'x4' instead of 4'x4'). We lined it with weed paper so that the sand wouldn't leak out every time it rained. 

Isn't this a much better size? Michael's old sandbox is on the right. 

 The official filling the sand box with sand ceremony:

 And we have a winner:

 Rachel was loving all of us being outside. 

 And she likes the sandbox too. 

Michael was so excited to go get ALL of his trucks to dig in the sand box. 

 And then it seemed like we should have mad the box bigger. 

And one of the best parts of this sandbox is that Michael can close it all by himself. We just love it! It really adds a lot to our downstairs patio area. I expect we'll all spend many a summer afternoon down there.