Archway and Concerts

You know that archway we built to separate our dining room and living room that we started last November? I finally got it painted in March and we're pretty pleased with how it turned out!

A reminder of what it looked like last Fall.

This is pretty much how the arch looked all winter.

By the end of March, this is what it looked like! I still have a little touching up to do on the edges, but it's mostly done and we love it!

I did most of the painting at the beginning of March, but we didn't get the keystones up until the end of March.

After Jack acquired his own French horn back in November, he was able to join a community band in January at no extra cost. Most people in this band are adults. Jack is one of the youngest. The band was directed by Phillip Simpson, who recently retired from teaching in the Kennewick School District. In fact, he was the girl's music teacher at Sage Crest and then he long term subbed for Jack's band class when the band director and his wife had a baby. So, Jack got to know him then. He had his first concert with this band on March 10th. They sounded so good! It's fun to see him playing in a band again since he couldn't fit it in his school schedule anymore. And since it's with seasoned instrumentalists, he's going to learn a lot from them. They meet once a week on Tuesday evenings to practice over in Pasco. The concert was held at the Columbia Basin College Auditorium, also in Pasco.

Charlotte also had another band concert at her school on March 19th. If you're not on time, you'll miss the performance because they are very punctual and 6th graders perform first.

Curtis made it this time!

Brother and Sister Gale bought her some flowers after the performance and brought them over. That was so sweet of them. They are like adopted grandparents.

Our New Pool Liner

It was exciting to see the process of getting a new pool liner this early spring. Leisure Pool and Spa came out in early March to empty the pool, remove the old liner, and take measurements for a new liner. After they took measurements, we waited a little over a month before they came to install the new liner because it had to be ordered, made and shipped to their store. I was amazed at how fast it actually went when they installed it. They came on a Thursday to do some prep work and then on Friday they installed the liner and started filling it with our hose that was connected to the house. They had these two big fans that would suck out all the air around the pool so it would stay flat. At one point, Curtis hooked up another hose around at the front of our house so that we could speed up the filling process. We had very low pressure for a couple of days. When the pool got filled high enough, they took the fans out and installed the new ring for the light. Then they continued to fill it. I think it was done by Sunday evening. We love the new color!

After uncovering the pool.

They used a hose and pump to pump the old water out to the gutter by the road.

Nearly empty.

Tearing it out.

Standing in it after school.

Our new liner! You can see the two fans, one on each side.

Having a little fun while the pool fills up.

The guy installing the ring for the light. They also installed new hardware for the skimmer box and the return jets. I don't know if they gave us a new drain cover, but probably.

All filled up!

The pool guy also asked if we wanted to make the 3rd hole in the wall another return jet. We said yes because that will help circulate the water better. I don't know why that hole wasn't being used before and we were wondering what it was for, but the guy hooked up all the pipes, so Curtis didn't have to. And they got the pool pump going and added chemicals. If we take good care of it, this liner should last 10-15 years. I sure hope so because it cost around $11,000 to get it done. And we haven't even seen our water bill yet from filling it up. I wonder what that will look like!