A $2.00 Family Memory

The best way my wife and I have found to get rid of the winter time blues/cabin fever is to force ourselves (and everyone else) outside to do something.  In preparation for yesterday's events, Friday night I went out and welded together some old scrap metal and made an umbrella stand to use around the yard this summer.  I used the spare tire rim from the pickup I had back in high school, a piece of galvanized pipe I have been holding on to so long I can't recall where it came from, and the wheels from our old barbecue grill that recently bit the dust.  The other small parts all came from my scrap metal box.

 I got it all cleaned up and painted yesterday morning, and all we needed was some cement to add some weight to it.  Since we were already going to Home Depot for one of the kids projects they do the first Saturday of each month, that is where we went for the concrete mix.  We told the kids last night we were going to pour some concrete, and they couldn't have been more excited.  One of the boys even prayed for our cement pouring project at breakfast.

For large concrete projects (sidewalks, feed bunks, foundations, etc.) I always buy Type 1&2 Portland Cement.  A 90 lb. bag costs about $10. For smaller projects such as this, we use ready mix concrete that only needs water added.  An 80 lb. bag usually costs about $4.  Ready mix concrete already has the portland cement and aggregate properly measured and mixed.  It is more expensive, but for small jobs ready mix makes more sense.  We really lucked out today, though.  We happened upon a discount cart at Home Depot, and got a torn bag of ready mix for half price.

As soon as we got home, I had no choice but to start mixing (the kids were ready to start on it themselves).  We nailed together a small cement form for a stepping stone, so we wouldn't have any cement go to waste if there was extra.  The kids each got a turn to add some water while I mixed with a shovel.  When it was ready I put the boys to spreading and smoothing while I shoveled the cement into the rim.  Little A  got a hold of my concrete edger and for the moment was happy patting it on the wet cement still in the wheelbarrow.  When the rim was filled I took over smoothing it down and my wife added cement to the stepping stone form while the boys attacked it with trowels.  We had a lot more cement left over than expected, so I grabbed a dog food bowl, lined it with the ready mix concrete bag, and put the remainder of the overrun into it.  Then, before we knew it, A had again gotten the edger and was using it on the cement in the dog bowl.  The boys tried to help her, but she would not have any of it.  She worked on it for about 20 minutes, and was very proud of her accomplishment.

The stepping stone G & R made got a lot of smoothing over, and it ended up with a smiley face on it.  Once we were all done and got our tools washed off, G & A moved on to other activities, and R was more than happy to use my socket wrench to bolt the wheels on the umbrella stand.  Hopefully this will make the whole thing easy to move around the yard this summer.

I really didn't expect for a simple project such as this to turn into a family affair, and I certainly didn't know all the kids would be so into it.  They love getting the chance to do things they have only seen other people do, and they especially love getting to do 'grown up' jobs.  But when we get to do something together that everyone is into, it can turn into a long lasting memory.  Especially when everyone is happy the whole time, and the cost for the entire activity is less than $2.00.