
Swimming with Hannah and Caden

Elijah trying on his life jacket...he likes to play with it more than have it on.

Elijah in friend Landon's pool
Elijah has gotten to go swimming a lot this summer...At home, at his friend Landon's house and out at his cousins. We have had a lot of fun taking him swimming. He really loves the water and has not shown any fear. He doesn't even mind his face getting wet.
Speaking of pools, we decided after spending time in a pool this summer that we would like to have one. We are not really taking a vacation this year because of the outrageous gas prices, so we got one! This is where the Ups and Downs come in....
1. When setting up a pool one should have a level area; our yard is not level in many places. So we (and by we I mean mostly Philip) had to level a spot in the yard out by bring loads of dirt in...a hot and dirty job in 90 degree weather.
2. One needs to fill the pool with water....preferably city water that is already treated....our water came from two old wells that have lots of minerals in them...especially rust! But the pool people we talked to said that it would be just fine and you can buy some stuff to get the rust out and the filter should take care of it. So We let the pool fill over night and started treating it the next day. We did that on Friday and the pool is still rusty...The water itself is clean, but there are rust particles floating around :(
3. ...And you have to wait for the sun to warm it up
The Ups:
1. You feel like a kid again! Despite the rusty water Philip and I jumped in and had a blast just being a kid in a pool. We also enjoyed just laying around on floatys soaking up the sun. The pool was surprisingly warm after just 3 days. I guess that warm weather was good for something.
So all in all we are happy we got the pool....hope that soon we will be rid of our rust problem...and now we know better for next year.