Pool Update, Family Vacation...lots of pictures!

On the 18th of March they plastered the pool, and then we began to fill it. They said it would take approximately 24 hours. We thought it would go faster because "we have good water pressure"....ahh no! It took over 30 hours....one of the pool guys who gave us a bid said it should only cost approximately $60 to fill the pool....I am not so sure that it will be that cheap considering the water shortage....I guess we will see when we get the bill. We enlisted our youth labor once again...leveling dirt, and laying sod!

The reward!!! A week of skiing in Mammoth! After a 6 hour drive the kids were excited to get out and do some sledding....Ellie was ready to get geared up.

And off they go....it is so nice to have an older brother!

The next day off to skiing/snowboarding. This is the second year we have stayed in the same condo....and it is within walking distance. We can even come home for lunch saving lots of $$$$.

These pictures get a little out of order, but you get the idea. As you can see we put Ellie on skis! She loved the chairlift....kind of like the buckets at the zoo. She was quiet as a mouse on the way up. She even fell asleep on my lap in the afternoon! I guess that means she was very relaxed...or we wore her out.

On the way down the moutain, she was chatting the whole way. When I would stop so I could bend down and hear what she was saying, she would say, "Mom why are you stopping? Go faster mom!"

I really just guided her down the slopes....but she had fun anyway...one introductory day for Ellie this year. She had fun! Next year she can take a little class....or maybe I will teach her we will see.

We travel with another family. This is the rest of the crew getting ready to hit the slopes.

The kids switched to snowboarding last year and really like it. This year they made a marked improvement on the boards and could go on alot more runs.

The first day of skiing was warm and sunny...in the 50's, each day got progressively colder and windier, this was day 3....it didn't stop us though.

Me, Ben and Madeline.

We came back to 80 degree weather and a full pool in San Diego. Unfortunately the pool is only about 67 we may need to invest in the solar panels. The kids went in anyway....although they didn't stay in a long time...alot of in, swim a bit...and back out for a bit.

We have company coming on Thursday, we have been working on the yard. We planted some more sod....and added some plants and trees.

Pool, Birthday, Decathalon Competition

It was a busy week here at the Mendler's. Last Sunday we went to Sacramento to watch Ben and his high school team compete in the Academic Decathalon SuperQuiz Relay. The questions for the SuperQuiz were all centered around the French Revolution, very hard questions they only had 7 seconds to answer!! This is what it looked like...with more teams to the left and right. There were approximately 61 teams with 9 kids on each team. If you look carefully you can see Ben, he is in the second row up from the bottom, the middle guy in the turqouise shirt. The following day was the awards. Unfortunatley my camera ran out of battery....but Ben took 1st in his division in math, which placed him 3rd amoung 549 kids not bad for a 10th grader! (The number one and two guys were seniors.) This was a ton of work...but he is already excited for next year!!

Happy Birthday Madeline!

As of Friday Madeline is officially a teenager!!

To celebrate she had a couple of friends over for dinner and then we went to Extraordinary Desserts! If you are ever in San Diego and want to see and eat some fantastic desserts this is the place to go!

Happy Birthday Maddie!

On Friday, they also plastered the pool, and we began to fill it Friday night around 6pm it was not done filling unitl 1am Sunday morning!! Look out for that water bill! I will picture full pictures of the pool and grass in a later post.

Before water.

Concrete

Here it is. The concrete. Never thought I would be so excited to walk on concrete. I have a correction to make from yesterday, I thought we had a salt finish we have an acid finish. It is a little hard to tell in the picture but it ends up having a speckled look, and it won't be splippery! Ellie was very excited to run around out there....she loved jumping off the steps!

What's next? Well, it is a little hard to tell in the picture but we are not super happy with the coping edge along the steps so we need to see what they can do to fix that. Then they will be putting some of the ledger stone underneath the lip of those steps. They will be putting the smooth coat finish on the bench wall, and painting it. There is still the finishing up of the concrete, some saw cuts, and mastic. Then they can plaster the pool and fill it up. The rest of the yard is up to the "in-house" landscapers. We (meaning Don and me....and whatever child labor we can harness) will be putting in some new sprinklers, bringing in some good dirt, mulch, we have a little patch of sod to lay. After that the fun part....some new plants to spruce up the place. Then we need lighting, furniture.....ok we still have alot to do, but it is nice that we can start walking around out there without tracking in so much dirt!

We have concrete!

So Friday they came and covered the yard in plastic. They had already framed and done the re-bar for the concrete but with the pending rain decided to wait until this week to lay the concrete. The plastic did it's job, they pulled it up on Monday to let it dry all the way out, and were able to lay the concrete yesterday.
Yesterday morning before they poured the concrete!

Here is the first look at the concrete! It has a grey look because they put an acid wash on it to give what will ultimately be what is called a salt finish. It get's sprayed on, they let it dry, today they are power washing it off. The color will be sandstone, which is maybe a shade darker than the coping. They will also be putting saw cuts in the concrete to prevent cracking. I will post more pictures tomorrow so you can see the finished color.

We are looking forward to going out in our backyard once again...in fact we are going to barbeque tonight! Woo! Hhoo!

CONCRETE DELAYED...

More rain expected, concrete is delayed until Tuesday!! Bummer!

Paint and grading....

These pictures were taken from the back door...too lazy to step out the door this morning!

So there have been some changes since the last post. They put the smooth stucco on the columns, painted the columns (this will eventually be our new house color). We didn't realize it was going to match our fence quite so well. These are different brands of paint, and different colors but that's ok we are color coordinated I guess and you won't notice so much once there are more plants in to cover up the fence.

They also have all the roof tiles on...no picture of that yet.

They have started grating and framing out the concrete. I am not sure why they laid all the plastic down, maybe to protect in from rain which we are expecting a little this afternoon and tonight. Hopefully not too much, if all goes well we will have concrete poured Friday!!!

Beams...and "kid" labor!

Here is what they completed yesterday, the beams for the covered patio!! It looks maybe a little narrow in this photo, but I think it is going to feel plenty big. Today the inspector comes to check the beams, then they will do all the tongue and groove paneling. (I think someone is coming to remove all the debris as well!) We had Madeline and her friend Casey painting the fence this weekend. They are trying to earn some money for summer camp...I told them we have work to be done around here!! They did a good job but only lasted about an hour and a half. That's ok small increments of work is fine, they did a good job that's what is important.

Columns, and retaining wall/bench

Here you can see the columns that will support our covered patio. The wood has been delivered for the structure itself and the guys are here now to get started after a few days off due to rain. More columns, and in the back corner of the yard you can see the retaining wall/bench. The wall will be capped in the same coping as the pool. Fortunatley, there was a little leftover from the pool, so we had to buy about 4 feet, plus some end caps. It would probably look a little better if it was double bullnozed on both sides, but we like the idea of using up the leftovers, and it does save us a few hundred dollars.

One more pic

Thought you could see tile better in this picture!

Progress

Here is the progress from today. They will be back Monday, on course to finish Tuesday. This weekend we will be getting the fence in order.

Moving Along

Ok we are moving along. Today they secured the coping (the top pieces surronding the pool), and then began installing all the ledger stone!

End of Day 1 Coping.

Here is a picture of the end of day 1 on the coping. The guys were here at 7am to get going again. The coping, stone work and tile should be done by Monday or Tuesday!!

Coping is here!

Progress is being made on the pool. After several weeks of no real noticeable progress things are moving along today. Yesterday the coping was delivered. The guys were here today to start installing at 7am. This is what was done in the first couple of hours....I will post pictures at the end of the day to let you see how far they get.

Fixing the Fence

So today Don worked on the sections of fence that need to be re-furbished. First we were going to re-furbish; it would be a little cheaper, eco-friendly etc. Than we thought we have alot of projects going I wonder how much it would be to buy pre-fab panels. This type of fencing is everywhere in our community surely Home Depot or Lowe's would carry what seems to be a standard panel, but for what cost? Well, it didn't matter, neither "box" store had the exact fencing we needed so we are back to time consuming, eco-friendly...but hey we are probably saving some $$$$. I am off to get some paint today. Once we re-paint those couple of sections I am sure we will want to paint the whole thing. It has been 10 years since that fence went up it is probably time. This just isn't the fun part.

Pool Update - we have had a "little" rain this week!

Well we have had just a little rain this week. Actually we have lived in San Diego for 15 years and I think this has got to be the most rain I have seen in one week in San Diego. The news said we did have this much rain in January 2000...and I do remember that because that is when we moved in and our yard was equally muddy.





We did have a few rain showers this morning but the sun is out now. Don hooked up the pump to pump the water out of the open trenches, next we will pump out the pool.


Unfortunately we had some fairly strong winds which did not bode well for our fence.

There is a chance they can start putting the coping on next week, depends on how fast things dry out. It doesn't help that there may be more rain Tuesday.

We have chosen a contractor for the covered patio. The plans have now been submitted to the city. We had to make a few budgetary cuts...but the concrete and main structure of the patio will take approximately 8 weeks to build. I will post the plans of the yard soon.