It's a 14-foot diameter circle of love, mounted over an immense hole in the ground. And through the past 6 years it's provided hours of Tiggeriffic fun.
So it was particularly disturbing when one evening a few weeks ago, the girls emerged from a bounce session with the tramp looking like this:
Anya did a great jump and instead of flying back up into the air, she heard a rip and fell through. It's remarkably difficult to jump when the mat has a large tear in it. Who knew?It made a pretty good mark on her leg, although it doesn't show too well here.
Of course, this state of affairs could not last long. I mean, we all need a little jump-love once in a while, not to mention a place to express our inner kangaroo.So we bought a replacement mat.
And let me just say that any instructions you might ever read about removing an old and installing a new mat will not do justice to the effort that is truly required. I guess we should have known it would be difficult. After all, we were trying to remove and reinstall a mat that is spread so tight it allows those who embark on it's smoothy goodness to leap to heights unachievable under mere leg power. And the old one was pulled outward so forcefully that a rip immediately spread most of the mat's width. I mean, we had some clues it would be difficult.
But it was achingly hard. We used muscles we didn't know we had. I managed to get snapped with a cord traveling at near light speed when we used it for added torque and it released unexpectedly.
That left a mark. Ouch.
After much sweat, grunting and straining, we had a beautiful new trampoline mat.
And of course three girls dying to break it in. Just like a High School Musical Poster.
Truth be told, the parents have been jumping a bit, as well. We just didn't get documented.Thankfully.
No comments:
Post a Comment