Backyard Fun: Building our own wooden swingset

As a Backyard Discovery Ambassador, I'm documenting the whole process of building a backyard swingset from the ground up. The company sent me their 2011 Montpelier playset.
First up - picking the spot. It has to be about 6 feet larger than the area the set will take up.
We picked this spot:

This week the boxes arrived. I was glad to see that the whole thing could fit in two boxes... made me feel reassured that this was going to be a project we could handle. I think it is!

The two boxes were too heavy to carry with all of the parts inside, so the first thing we did was to open the boxes and take the piece to the backyard. As we did that we sorted them according to part name (each part is labeled with a letter and number) then checked off all the parts on the part list. All was there, whew!
Next it was time to start building! As the kids played nearby, we assembled the ladder, monkey bars and swings post. I wish the parts were all sorted according to what each section needs. It would save SO much time. I spent most my time looking for the right screw, nut, bolt, etc. Some of the building so far was awkward... but it was also really easy. Everything is pre-drilled and it is really a matter of looking at the pics in the instruction manual and following instructions.
All in all, we spent about 5 hours on this section of the sorting and building.

Tomorrow - we move to the building of the fort phase! Stay tuned.