Early Christmas

Some of our friends, who also have a one-year-old daughter, have a clubhouse for their daughter IN their house. We've have been over there a few times since they bought the clubhouse and Savannah does nothing but play on it. All the other little children may be playing with the hundreds of other toys, but not Savannah. She only wants to play on the clubhouse.

We asked our friends where they bought the clubhouse and for how much (because it's BIG). Surprisingly, they told us they bought it off of craigslist and for a very reasonable price. So, ever since then, we've been on the craigslist "hunt" to find this clubhouse. And it just so happened that we found one this week for sale just 20 miles from our house. 

It was Thursday morning when we went to pick up our find and bring it home. Unassembling, loading and driving home with this clubhouse was NOT an easy task. With no help from the man selling the clubhouse, Caleb took it apart, loaded it into the bed of his truck and strapped it down. I don't have pictures of this progress, but it took nearly an hour. 

As we made our way home, we weren't on the highway for more than three minutes when Caleb asked me to look out the mirror to see if it looked like it was all staying in okay. Jokingly, I said "Oh no! It looks like it's about to fall out!!" He knew I was joking and we both started laughing. Literally, not two seconds later, the WHOLE clubhouse goes flying out of the back of the truck and tumbling down the highway! In complete shock and disbelief, Caleb quickly pulled over the truck to the side of the highway.

Luckily, there were no vehicles (much less a semi truck) closely behind us AND the clubhouse tumbled it's way off the highway, onto the shoulder of the road. Thankful that it didn't cause a wreck or get crushed, I wanted to laugh at the irony of it all, but Caleb wasn't finding it funny at all. So I had to bite my lip. He started walking down the side of the highway and heaved the heavy clubhouse back into the bed of the truck. We drove very slowly down the highway just a few more miles. Then we were able to exit and go to a store to buy more straps to hold this clubhouse down.

Once we made it home safely, with a slightly scuffed-up clubhouse, Savannah went down for a nap. Caleb unloaded the clubhouse and later that afternoon, I hosed it off really well so that we would be able to have it in the house.

The following day, while Savannah and I were out playing with our friends, Caleb moved the clubhouse into the house and set it up in our empty dining room. We were out late that night and Savannah was asleep by the time we came home, so it was yesterday morning before she was able to play with her new clubhouse. Oh, how she loves it! 

She has spent hours playing on it already and we've only had it for two days. Today, we took pictures of her climbing, sliding and playing in her early Christmas present: the clubhouse.

 It was an adventure getting it to our house, but very well worth it!