Hopefully Last Pool Post

I'm starting this blog out with some color because when we get to the pool it's pretty gray...literally. The flowers on the front porch are looking pretty good since the weather has been cool. Now that's it's warming up I don't think I'll be able to forget to water them like I have a couple of times last month.
Pikes Market in Seattle. Colorful.
I've been working on a path that moves around the house. I laid rock and relaid rock to come up with a plan. I think I can live with this idea. You can see one of the big rocks that I am thinking we can use for steps getting onto the pool deck. Joel almost has me talked into having trek steps built instead. I don't know. Any advice.
Shed is now gray with white trim....pretty boring. The two small rocks on the right we tried to make into steps into a smaller area on Saturday. They ended up looking very lame so needless to say they are back sitting on the basketball court.
The fence guys showed up on Thursday and planted the poles. Lamar watered on Saturday and it came into the yard. This is the only part it came into. You can see the rest of the deck is finished on the pour. It's gray.
Fence and finished decking.

This is the pool krete. It needs to be put around the sides except on the cement walls. It will also be on the bottom. It has to be smoothed out. Maybe they will finish that part tomorrow. All is well here. It's getting hot enough that we are wanting to use the pool so maybe by the end of next week. I think I've already said that a couple of times.

Doug Hiking

Doug went hiking without me on Saturday. The batteries in his camera were working this time and I'm glad. Here is a picture of a wooden pipe. It's wrapped in heavy wire. I guess when they first got these trails going it would have been difficult to get cement pipes up there.
If you look close you can see the grain of the wood.
A picture from the hike. Thanks Doug.
Guess who came to our house on Father's Day? Braxtyn! Oh, Seth, Joel and Caitlan too. Braxtyn is working on a scrap book. She did a great job.
Pool progress. These are the steps prior to them building the shelf that they forgot.
Joel and Caitlan wanted to be the first ones to swim. ha ha
Deep end.
You can see the colored cement around the edges and the forms for the other cement. They poured the other cement today. I haven't taken any pictures. Maybe you will just have to wait.

Graduation For David

We need to begin with the most important pictures of the day. On Sunday, June 14, David earned his JD Degree. I guess that stands for Juris Doctorate. He was editor-in-chief of law review, which is the most prestigious position in law school. He's not actually a lawyer until he passes the Bar Exam which he is taking at the end of July - so if you want to sue someone you wil need to wait a month or so.
Proud Mama. Way to go David.
Proud Papa. Such two remarkably handsome men.
Receiving the degree.
Here he is in a crowd of 162 graduates. Of course I narrowed it down a bit.
On Saturday we wandered and rested. We are in the commons area of University of Washington. Some of the trees you will see in the next picture are cherry blossom trees. They come on for about 2 weeks and David said it is gorgeous. It's a very beautiful campus,
Many Old Buildings. The campus started in downtown Seattle but in 1909 it was moved up to this location.
David sitting at the law school. It is a new building. I think he said it was used one year prior to their class attending. It's modern. The library and reading room inside are amazing as are the court rooms.
Messing around at a restaurant. This is a picture of our reflection in the window.
David at his kitchen. He has a very nice apartment. He had it spotless, seriously. He has 3 big windows that look out into the street right across from the fridge. The windows are part of the dinning area and living room. I guess you could say there is a living room even though there is no couch.
We went to the famous Pikes Place Market. It was a bit of an adventure.
Messing around.
Flowers everywhere. I thought I had also loaded a picture of all the colorful vegetables for sale. It was beautiful. Very fun day. We had amazing weather. Thanks David for showing us such a good time.

POOL UPDATE

Here is the big digger going at it. They dig out the deep end knowing they will hit some water, which they did. They put a pump into the water today and pumped it out into the field so they could get to the pool and form the sides up with shovels. After the digger then the real digging starts with shovels
The dirt around the pool is road base. It will pack well and hold the cement better than the dirt they pulled out of the bottom of the pool.
I need about 2 feet of the road base around the pool where the deck will go.
You can see the braces in the pool holding the walls up and even as everyone is working around it.
The machines that have been busy working. This post is pictures from Wednesday. Today, Thursday, they are placing the rock around the road base. It looks nice. If it will stop raining enough for them to get into the deep end without falling they will work on the deep end forming it up with shovels.

Yard Mess

On Memorial Day weekend Sarah and Steve came up to visit. Steve wants to try and spend more time with his folks and it's to our benefit. Sarah had some sewing and Lexi and I needed a project. Lexi Lou came with me to Jerry's Nursery and she picked out the "Lexi Tree." Jerry said it will do great in our soil. She was quite the helper. It's a Maple Tree.
I had a friend of mine from work pour this curbing. He and his buddy poured all the curbing we have in the yard from 20 years ago to now. I moved some dirt into this part. Dirt came from Adam's "jump" and I transplanted some strawberries. They are great to eat of course and they are such a pretty ground cover. The strawberries in the front are on now and we eat away. With Blitz spending time with Joel we know the berries haven't been peed on so usually I just grab and eat. I hope some neighboring dog has not be using the berries to mark his territory.
I shoveled out some dirt to extend this rock path. A friend of mine had some rock I wanted to purchase and she said we could trade for math tutoring. Simple. She's already been over once and then assigned homework. One of the rocks is about 5 feet long and 6 inches wide, sandstone. I want it scored and broken into smaller pieces. It will happen. This will be a fun path coming around the house.
Pool update. Here are the walls poured into their forms. It was done last Friday.
On Tuesday the forms came down.

Walls with skimmers and the re-bar for the decking.

Picture of an 80th Birthday

I was checking out some photos and came across some from summer 2006. We went up to the church to Uncle Gene's birthday. It was his 80th. This is a picture of Uncle Val, Joanne and one of Tera Lee's baby twin boys. Imagine them 3 years older.
Cousin Phil (Uncle Max's oldest surviving), Uncle Terry, Doug and Tera Lee.
Cousin Mark (Uncle Max), Cousin Blair (Uncle Val) and Doug.
It was a birthday for Roy Herrick too. I guess they are just days apart. One family had the party in the new gym and one had the party in the old gym. We love Roy. He's our Stake Patriarch.
Uncle Gene and Aunt LaVon.
Doug and Aunt Helen. This is a very sweet picture of Helen.