Thursday, July 23, 2009

"Let's Be Logical In Our Insanity"

This post title is an actual quote from my dear husband last night. It was really funny because it's SO us. We tend to do things that makes me wonder~ are we GENIUS OR TOTALLY INSANE? On our most recent shenanigan the jury is still out.

Once a decade I throw my husband a big bash. His 30th birthday I really went all out and we had a very memorable Luau party complete with a real roasted pig turning on a spit in the backyard, a dunk tank, a HUGE beach backdrop and props for souvenir photos (that were taken by a Polaroid camera and placed in a keepsake photo frame), cool decorations everywhere, and catered with Hawaiian food.

So this year I am attempting to top last decades party as Jim is turning 40. No over the hill party for this youthful guy! Those who know us well know that we are glued to our TV on Wednesday nights to watch Lost. So we will be hosting a Lost themed party this time. Lost takes place on an island so we need us a beach.

So far not too much sounds real insane about the party plans but here comes the crazy part~ We managed to get in touch with a paving company that had ordered $15,000 worth of really cool, colorful, high quality sand for a project they were going to do for the Crowne Plaza Hotel. For whatever reason they ended up not using it so wanted to get rid of it. They allowed us to take it all for FREE if we just pick it up and take it away!!!!! We had wanted to find "some" sand for both decoration and a couple of party events we had in mind. However, we never thought we could get our hands on enough to turn areas of our own back yard into a private beach!

Last night Jim pulled into our driveway with a 16' Ryder truck full of what we figured was around 5 TONS of sand that Jim and I now needed to unload. This is the point that we stood gazing at it all and wandered if we were just totally nuts to be doing this.


All of these green tubs are Large outdoor garbage cans. We figured each can to weigh as much as up to 500 lbs each.
It really is beautiful sand. It even FEELS good to the touch as it is specially made sand. It is hard to see well in this picture but this tub had this pretty blue, brown, and tan sand. We also have a lot of black and white sand, and another mix of very pretty light red, orange, and gold sand. We are going to have a seriously exotic beach! This sand is not as dusty as regular beach sand and does not stick on you as much as regular sand.

The kids were so excited to crawl around in the truck checking it all out.



Kyle, Johnny, Luke, and Lovenie laugh hard as they all tried as hard as they could to move a can and couldn't get it to even budge. UPDATE~ Johnny informs me that they DID move it 3 inches. (where that estimate comes from only he knows)
How do two people move 5 tons of sand by themselves? Well, the plan was to use a hand cart until we discovered that we had a flat tire on it and it was no help at all. We were at least very thankful to have a lift gate on the truck! When we attempted to move the tubs this is when my engineer (I'm convinced the mind of an engineer just works differently then the rest of us) analyzed the situation and came up with the most clever and efficient way to get the job done. I told him how impressed I was with him and this is when I got the response of "Yes, let's be logical in our insanity!". Okay, well, at least there was some logic used at some point!


7 comments:

Amanda said...

Are you going to put it down on tarps?? Or are you going to have a permanently sandy back yard??

Wow. That's CrAzY! But I bet it will be the BEST 40th EVER!!! IN HISTORY!!!

Mr Nice Guy said...

"Yes, let's be logical in our insanity!" - I can totally hear Jim say that in my head. Too funny.

BTW: I'm an eternal fan of Johnny's signature "Wow" expression

Becky Hinchley said...

I'm laughing because we did the same thing a few summers ago. I had mentioned to my husband that I wanted to throw a beach party for the secretaries I supervised....so he built me a Tiki Bar and had a load of sand delivered (he's a mason so it was easy). After the party, we invited all the neighbors over to get some sand to fill their sandboxes. It's a nice way to get rid of it afterwards!

Becky

Baurer said...

How fun! (not the unloading part, tho). But what fun to have a real beach party!

.....now, how do you put in the ocean...???

The Haiti Lady said...

OK....whatever will you do with the sand when YOU are done with it???

Mr Nice Guy said...

By the way...

came up with the most clever and efficient way to get the job done.

what was the clever, efficient solution?

Angela said...

LOL... Jim~ a very scientific tilt to the can while rolling and pulling this way and then that way on it. I wouldn't even know how to describe it but it got the job done!

LeAnne~ Post on Craiglist giving away free sand and then watch people come over and load it all up themselves and take it away!