I mean, he’s a 16-year-old boy who has to pay for 1/2 of all his clothes and gas money (more about that here) and upcoming-I’m-sure-expensive dates. Plus he really likes to eat at Costa Vida :)
So he needed a summer job like nobody’s business (thanks for all the ideas about summer jobs back here).
The problem is that he has two national volleyball tournaments this summer and some serious practices leading up to them, so getting a regular job was hard to come by.
On a separate problem, we needed some help at our new home building site. There were some serious things that needed to be moved and cleaned out to keep the work going.
So we hired Max and a few friends to help out for the day.
They really did work hard, although it looks like hardly working in that picture up there.That and a discussion with a friend gave Dave the whiz bang idea to hire Max to be the go-to grunt-guy at the new house. We would have to pay someone to do it anyway, so why not hire our own son who needs the money and who could learn some serious great stuff in the process.
Plus, what a great feeling to work so hard on something and then be able to enjoy the fruits of your labor by actually living there.
I personally thought it was a brilliant plan that husband of mine conjured up.
Max did too at first, especially when he and Dave sat down to work out the details and a goal for how much cash he should save up by the beginning of the next school year.
But some days I’m not so sure he is pleased as punch about that thing.
It is HOT around here I tell you.
Oh wait, it did get down to a low of 90 that night, (brrrrr), but 118? Yeah, that doesn’t make for fun outdoor construction work.
He has cleaned up more insulation and scrap stuff from the builders than he’d want to count:
But he’s also tried his hand at using a small jack hammer to fix the garage:
He’s helped wire some of the lighting:
And more jack-hammering on the back porch:
I tried it for a little while to see how rough it was, and I’ll just say that is no cake-walk.
I told him it would make for some big muscles though, cause that thing is hefty. He smiled his slow smile at that little fact.
More wiring:
And cleaning.
I’m a pretty proud Mama of that boy right now. Because he hasn’t complained (much).
And I’m always a lover of the “we do hard things principle.” (here and here)
Now if we can just get that thing done and move on in...