Elm trees & swing sets

Back in July, we had to bid farewell to the enormous Siberian Elm in our backyard because it was, uh, diagnosed (?) with Dutch Elm Disease. It was a sad day when we scheduled the removal because we had hoped to build the most epic tree house ever for the girls. There was going to be a suspension bridge, pulley's, a rope ladder, zip lines and even electricity. At least that had been the plan. Saying good-bye to the tree meant saying good-bye to the tree house dream as well.

That HUGE mass off branches is all Siberian Elm. It was enormous.

With the tree coming down, we opted for Plan B. A shiny new play set with a climbing wall, rope ladder, slide, swings, trapeze, and tower. After delivery, the giant boxes sat in the garage until after the tree was down (another 2-3 weeks). Poor Hayden and Lucy would go into the garage and sit on the boxes, looking at the picture of the set and saying "can we swing and slide now?". We kept telling them, "as soon as the tree is down, we will put the set up. We promise!"

The stump ~ beautiful ~ but it had to go too.

Eventually, the tree was down and the new swing set was up and all was right in toddler world.

Not quite finished - tower, rope ladder, 3rd swing and accessories had not been installed yet.

Fast forward to this afternoon. Brad and Hayden had gone for a walk through the neighborhood. We had some heavy snow last week; not a lot of it but enough to break some branches. Throughout the area there are many Siberian Elms, most of which probably need to come down as well.

As father and daughter walked along, they came to a tree that was indeed being taken down. Hayden stopped and looked at Brad and said "Are they getting a new swing set too?" 

Because when a tree comes down, it must surely be replaced with a swing set.