The Pool is Finished!

...ok, well, it was finished 2 weeks ago, but I haven't had a chance to update this thing. We've been having a blast swimming though! It's really a great family activity - many nights all 6 of us are out there swimming and chatting. Weekends usually find us with a few extra kids around, but it's so nice having them here instead of my boys at someone else's house swimming - after all, that was the point of building it! So here's what you see when you walk out our door: the basketball hoop has already gotten a ton of use! This is definitely a pool for big kids though - our shallow end is neither very shallow or very big. It starts sloping into the deep end fairly quickly. We do have a large Baja step though that you can sit or lie on. Here's a few more pics - it's not as small as it looks though. ;)

And a couple of the boys in it: As you can see, we still have work to do in the yard. We pretty much tore out the whole backyard when we started this project. The next step is installing a sport court and getting the grass and rocks installed because right now, it's gets kind of muddy out there! More pics of the process will be put in the photo album soon...

Back in School!

Yes, school has already started here! August 6 was the first day for all 4 boys. Summer went by so fast! I was very happy with the teacher Kent and Kurt (3rd grade) got, plus the "pod" Wyatt (7th grade) got into was the one I requested - very happy about that! Grant (sophomore/10th) has a huge workload this year - all honors classes with Advanced PE. I still haven't figured out just what makes the PE class advanced, but it's taught by the head football coach and that's all that matters - the class is full of football players!

Now, if I can just figure out how to slow things down so that this year doesn't whooosh by like last year.

They just couldn't wait!!

FINALLY!! The interior Pebble Tec was done on Monday. On Tuesday we got to start filling our pool. When the boys got home from school, the deep end only had about 3 feet of water in it. Next thing I knew, they had put their suits on and jumped in. I told them it was the only time they'd be able to stand in the deep end with their heads above water. Yesterday (Wed.) it was full about noon so we all got to swim. Today they are installing the diving board, getting the waterfall going, and doing a formal start-up of the pool. More photos of the finished product will be posted soon!

The Deck is Formed

The deck was finally formed out last week. This is where they make all the outlines for where the concrete will be poured. We can finally see how much room we will have for patio furniture and lounge chairs. Of course, it's never enough! Be sure to look in the pool photo album for more photos..

The deck was actually poured on Monday, but I haven't yet taken photos. Stay tuned!

Shotcrete and Waterfall...

Last week we had the shotcrete done - kind of a fascinating process. At 5am the workers arrived and began pounding and pounding. As I lie in bed, I couldn't figure out what in the heck they were pounding! I'm sure the neighbors were LOVING us that morning. Turns out the workers were pounding stakes into the ground all around the perimeter of the pool so they could surround it with a tarp. I was intrigued, yet disappointed that I couldn't see what they were doing! Fortunately at one point they took down part of it so I could peek in. They were done by about 10am! Now it was our turn - for the last 5 days we've had to water the pool down about every 2 hours (not at night). That was to ensure the concrete didn't cure too quickly and result in a lot of cracks. However, since the temps have been extremely high (115+), I'm sure it cured quicker than normal. We still did our job though and I don't see many cracks. After it was partly dry, we all got to finally walk down into the pool.

Monday, the rock waterfall was installed. Right now it looks like a big pile of rocks! But it will be beautiful once it's running (and yes, that big pipe will be cut off!) with plants around it.

The next step is the decking. I'll be so glad to get some of the mess around there cleaned up!

We have steel!

We got the rebar/steel put in last week. We've spent this week waiting for an inspection to get ironed out. Had to play a bit of the squeaky (throwing in a little whiny with it) wheel to get it done. Tomorrow we get shotcrete (concrete that is sprayed into the pool)! I'll be taking lots of photos of the process...probably from the window. I certainly don't want my camera to get sprayed with concrete! Well, me either, for that matter. ;)

We have a hole!

So pool construction finally began this past week. It took 2 days to dig it and what fun we had watching! The boys (even Grant) got a kick out of the excavator and the bobcats - what boy wouldn't? The entire outside of the house is covered with a layer of dirt. Yuck.

I've been taking photos (of course) from before we even started doing anything to the yard, so I've posted a few of them in the Building a Pool photo album over to the right.

Plumbing was done today. Steel work will be next week. Yippee!

Summer so far...

The boys got out of school on May 25th. We bought a Wii on May 28th. That was their reward for doing so well in school this year. Wyatt brought home straight A's again, Grant retained his #1 ranking in his Freshman class by bringing home straight A's too. And Kent and Kurt still got straight checkmarks! So glad they get regular grades next year.

Grant started summer school (he is taking his 2nd semester of PE to get it out of the way) on May 30. He came home with a jammed right hand. Passing League for football started on May 31. He came home with a "messed up" left wrist. June 1 found us at the nearest Urgent Care finding out that he broke his left wrist and his right pinkie. Oy. Yes, 3rd year in a row for a break on the left arm appendage somewhere.

We were all heartbroken and bummed. Grant's physical activity schedule for the summer was intense. Five hours a day for PE, plus working out in the weight room (required attendance for football), speed training twice a week, and passing league once a week for 3 hours. Monday, June 4th (do you like all the dates? I want to be sure you stay focused here...), we went to the ortho. The wrist got casted (is that a word?), the pinkie was OK. I was able to get permission for Grant to continue in PE with limited participation, but no-go on the football activities, so he is out for 3 weeks. We are all surviving.

In other news...we are putting in a pool! Yes, we've lived in this house for many years, in the Arizona hell-heat, with no pool to jump into and refresh ourselves after coming home from our heat-stressed trip to the grocery store...or walk to the mail box. We couldn't get our act together early enough to get it scheduled to be finished in time for summer, so we just elected to be under construction during the summer months. Yes, we love having dirt and dust blown into our house in the depths of the summer heat. Anyway, we are hoping it gets done...just in time for the boys to start back to school! Yay. Heh. Actually, it might get completed before that, so we are crossing our fingers. But not holding our breath.

With a few movies, many play dates, and lots of Wii...that's been our summer so far.

Almost Over!

One more week of school and we are done! I'm as ready as the boys for the year to be over. The month of May is so busy with school alone, then throw in baseball, spring football, and us all getting the stomach flu, and we are DONE!

Baseball is almost over also. Wyatt's last regular game is tonight (tournament next week) and Kent and Kurt's last game is tomorrow. Since I've been remiss in posting baseball pics, here's one of each: As always, it's been a fun season, but long.

One more picture, the boys and I on Mother's Day - the boys have grown so much in the last year!

OK...off to summer we go!

...I'm happy I'm a scrapbooker/crafter/hoarder. Today was bug habitat day. And lucky me, I got to oversee TWO of them, not just one. And double-lucky me that one of them has scorpions and snakes in it. Only double-NOT.

So Kent and Kurt chose an insect, or in Kurt's case, an arachnid, about which they had to research, write a report, and create a habitat.

Kent chose the mosquito - one of the worst insects to deal with where I used to live...humid Missouri. The habitat had to have some of the food chain, so as you can see, the bat is there to eat the mosquitos, and the mosquitos are drinking nectar from the flowers. Kent says mosquitos are mostly nocturnal so of course it had to be night time.

And Kurt chose the scrorpion, THE worst creature to deal with where I live now...Arizona. Did you know that corpions can eat snakes and snakes can eat scorpions? All together now: EEEEEWWWWWWWW!" We used burlap to represent sand - much less messy. And of course, being a house of all boys, it wasn't tough to come by some snakes and scorpions, as well as a beetle for a snack.

Putting these together gave me my Reason #159 (or something like that)...while my friends were out spending lots of money for materials for these habitats, I'm proud to say that I spent under 8 bucks, only for the real cacti. I had everything else in my stash. This is also the reason that I refuse to get rid of my ancient Making Memories letter stickers (have them in every color!), and any papers that look realistic, even if neither of them will ever have a chance to grace one of my scrapbook pages. I'm also grateful for my "experiementation" phases of scrapbooking so I own things such as the glass bubble marbles and the silk flowers, as well as my other hobbies where I picked up things such as burlap and smooth rocks.

This started out as something I was dreading...I actually had to touch those fake snakes and scorpions and they gave me the willies. But having all the fun supplies to create it, including the tools to put it together: spray paint, stapler, and GLUE DOTS; made it so easy we all 3 ended up enjoying it.

Just a note: I'm way overdue in putting up baseball photos, so I'll get to that in the next few days. The season is flying by and we had our first really hot day game yesterday. One hundred degrees and counting!