Our neighbor, Mark, came over to our house on Saturday during a cookout. Isabelle had the opportunity to jump on "Uncle Mark's trampoline" a few weeks ago at their house and she continued to talk about it for several weeks, almost every day asking when she can jump on it again.
So when Mark was here, I asked him if we could bring Isabelle over to his house anytime to play on it. He was so excited he almost busted a gasket. He was getting ready to disassemble the thing and drive it to the dump because he had "asked everyone" if they wanted it and nobody took him up on the offer. (Well, he never asked US!)
He begged for us to take it off his hands, and he refused to accept any money for it (I really did try, honestly!). So we accepted the generosity and then he just showed up on Tuesday with the disassembled trampoline in his truck and proceeded to assemble it right in our yard. His 20-something stepson had purchased it 2 years ago when he lived with them and the kid has since moved back to California. The assembly instructions were dutifully thrown in the trash as soon as the thing was put together the first time (gee, go figure!). So Mark knew he could throw the thing together much faster than Ed would be able to figure out how all the parts matched up.
So just a few minutes later, we had a "brand new" (to us) trampoline in the yard and we haven't been able to get Isabelle off of it. She's been a jumper since those first few muscles were strong enough to allow it (anyone remember the Fisher Price Jumparoo we used to have???).
I think I'm going to need a much nicer camera to actually get a picture of her on this thing, because all the pics I've taken so far look like this (and this is with the "sport" setting on for those fast-action pics, hahaha):
