The Fort

Back in June I was cleaning out the garage and realized that my lumber pile was taking up WAY too much space.  One day I chopped most of it up and gave the kids a box of nails and a couple of hammers.  Before I knew it, several neighbor kids had congregated at our house and a fort was being built.  For days kids would show up and hammer away.  Our kids were still in school through the end of the month, but neighbor kids who WEREN'T in school would show up in the morning and ask to work on the fort.  I'd have to shew them away and tell them to come back in the afternoon when our kids were home.  I'm still not sure how they planned on getting the walls of the fort to connect or stay together, but the important thing was that they were outside in the beautiful sunshine, using their hands and their imaginations and not sitting in front of the TV (or as we call it, the Idiot Box).  After about a week I had to break the fort apart because it has been laying on our front lawn burning up the grass. 

It's bittersweet because within less than a month, the Kleckners, Johnsons, and Newlands all moved away, leaving Ethan with three less good friends on our street.  In fact, he has no more good friends on our street, but luckily he still has best friends that live in the neighborhood.  It was a short summer, but a good summer for memories.