Swimming pools. I'm convinced that there's a little something extra mixed-in with the chlorine to cause pools to be irresistible to children. On one hand it's endearing... I have wonderful memories of splashing around with friends and family. On the other hand, it can be frustrating... after spending thousands of dollars on a Disney vacation, all the kids want to do is hang out by the pool. We could be staying at the Holiday Inn or the Grand Floridian, it's all the same to the kiddos as long as there's a pool.
So as wifey and I began to make our vacation plans for the year - Disney in December, Cape Cod in August or maybe another visit to the Outer Banks - we, like most American's in 2009, sat around the kitchen table and took a hard look at costs & expenses. We wanted to get away but it just seemed a bit silly - almost wasteful - to spend all that money for one week of fun. That's when the idea of a pool entered into the equation.
We've always wanted a pool but, for one reason or another, never got around to it. So this year we decided to get serious about getting some quotes and seeing what it would take. After checking references, evaluating costs and doing some number-crunching, we came to the conclusion that this year's summer vacation would be spent in the back yard. Contractors were retained, permits were pulled and today the construction finally began.
The first steps were to determine exactly where the pool is going to live, followed by determining how much leveling work was to be done, followed by a few agonizing hours of digging, driving and dumping across the lawn. (I must be getting old... I get chest pains when I see my carefully manicured lawn being disturbed.)
The kids were completely enthralled by the process and the novelty of seeing heavy equipment tooling around the yard was deemed "cool" by my son. My daughter stated "Oooh, Daddy... they're WRECKING our lawn." (Thanks, hon... I didn't notice.)
Seeing the pile of sand in the driveway disappear was a welcome sight. The kiddos also got a kick out of having their own, private, giant-sized sandbox for an afternoon.
Now it's off to knock-down some of the mountains of dirt that were excavated from the site of the pool and try to rake-up the dirt caked-in from the equipment treads. Tomorrow we should see a bit more activity as things begin to look... well... decidedly more pool-like. In the meantime, I see that Disney released a new "meal plan included" promotion for a Disney World vacation. Hope we made the right call.
AWESOME! You totally made the right call...Ryan will be out for Moschetto Summer Camp.
Posted by: Kristen | June 11, 2009 at 12:29 PM