Longer, Wetter and Slippier: Third Annual Slip-N-Slide Party

Longer, wetter and slippier (that's a word, right?). That's what we try to accomplish every year with our Slip-N-Slide party.

We started the shingdig three years ago and we've made improvements every year.

You can read about our first run here.

In our second year, we improved the slide holding mechanism slightly with some metal bars and stakes.

It's just a flesh wound

It held up well, but our friend Nate made the mistake of running across the slide and ended up with this gash. Another friend ran UP the slide and tore a big hole in it. That's what happens when people get a little tipsy!

Setup in 2013 thanks to Trung's help

The time it took to setup the slide was still pretty time consuming, not to mention you die of heat exhaustion while setting it up in the middle of the day. Thankfully we always have some great friends who are at our house EARLY (because they spent the night) to help out.

So, for our third annual party, Micah wanted to improve setup time even more! Since last year's party left the slide with a hole, Micah bought a new slide and he went for the 75ft. one! An extra 15 feet!
Micah also devised a new way to secure the slide: grommets. Genius.

The week before the party, Micah and I spent 5 hours taping the slide with heavy duty a/c duct tape and then punching in grommets every foot. Thankfully the World Cup was on while we were doing this back-breaking work!

On the day of the party, we put down a thin layer of foam padding, the old slide and then the new slide. The new slide was easily secured with landscape pins.

We also put up a bunch of moving blankets and an air mattress as a bumper. Extra insurance was needed since the fence came loose last year. We don't play around (or maybe we play around too much?)!

In years past, we would just put a sprinkler head at the top of the slide -- and while that worked well, it wasn't great. So this year, Micah got this hose.

It actually distributed the water all the way down the slide plus it looked really pretty at dusk!

For food, I had a nacho bar and grilled Mexican corn. The night before the party, I spent a few hours frying 200 fresh tortillas into tortilla chips. I smelled tortillas in my sleep that night, no joke.

This was also our first year of the Slip-N-Slide under the new patio. It was so much better with all the shade and fans. I think everyone appreciated that!

While it's a lot of work to get it all together, we love having this party because it's just grown ass people getting to act like a kid for a day. It's all sorts of awesome. And here is the proof that we're ridic.

Micah loves buying props for the slide. 

It's a bromance y'all.

This is what our lawn looks like after it takes a beating from the party. Thankfully it's supposed to rain this week. Until next year!