Fort

The twins have a decent-sized yard, but it's tiered due to a steep hill.  There's a fence at the bottom, and on the other side of that is mostly brush: random bushes, tall trees, lots of ground cover and fallen leaves.  Oh, and an old playset with a slide and swing, buried under all the nature.

With today being as gorgeous as it has been, we spent the day outside, riding bikes, blowing bubbles, and, on a whim, deciding to unearth the playset.  The kids didn't even know it was there; every ten minutes, Patrick would look at me and said, "How come slide here? We can ask Daddy."

We had two kid-sized snow shovels, a trowel, a mini-rake, a broom, and three wet towels, and we went to work.  Those two love cleaning, so they had a blast.  Patrick got the lower wooden level all swept off, while I shoveled leaves off the top part.  All three of us scrubbed who knows how many years of dirt and grass off the slide.  Then, of course, Lilly went down it three times and got the rest with her butt.

I have no idea what their parents will think, as they obviously know it's back there and have made no efforts toward using it with their kids, but hopefully we won't be prohibited.  We still have lots of cleaning to do.  If possible, I want to clear out a path to it (not just a walkable area with large branches removed) and line it with stones or logs, but we'll see.  I haven't done this sort of thing since the days when I followed my older brothers out to their secret forts in the woods.  Come to think of it, I was prohibited from those too.  One day I shall win!