You may remember that we got Addison a trampoline for his birthday.  It has been money well spent.  We all love playing on it, it’s great exercise for me and has given us hours of fun family time.  How can I resist “mommy, come jump with me”?  After we’re worn out from jumping then we roll around on it, wrestle, snuggle and watch the clouds and birds overhead.  The benefits definitely outweigh the risks.  I know, I know, there is a risk of someone breaking an arm but there is also a risk of getting in an accident every time I get in the car.  Twisted metal and flammable fluids haven’t stopped us from getting where we need to go.

One risk that we didn’t take very seriously back in October was wind.  We didn’t take any precautions against the wind and found out the hard way what happens when you don’t.

One week before Christmas we experienced very strong winds in the middle of the night.  Nothing new for Oklahoma.  The next morning Addison looked out his window, ran outside, ran inside to announce that the trampoline was gone.  Upon my panicked inspection I found that the trampoline flew clean over the fence and across the street.

You’ll be happy to know that the fence was in no way harmed during the trampoline’s flight pattern.

Dear Husband and I were pretty upset as we thought our brand new trampoline was ruined.  Thankfully we were able to get it back into the yard (thanks to his co-workers) and bend it back into shape.

After a month of debate and google searches for ways to secure a trampoline we finally settled on the type of stake that you have to twist into the ground.  We initially thought the pet store was the best place to go to find a large dog, corkscrew style stake.  We found what we were looking for but each stake was over $20 and we wanted 5 of them.  A quick stop a the hardware store and we discovered a similar iron stake that was less than $5.  Bingo.

We (and by “we” I mean Dear Husband) weren’t sure the best way to secure the stake to the legs of the trampoline so we decided to try two methods.  I’ll let you know which works better in about two months when tornado season is upon us.