Birthday Eggstravaganza

My mom-in-law's birthday is on April 8th, Trin's birthday is on the 11th, my dad's is on the 13th, and my dad-in-law's is on the 30th. So April is basically Christmastime, Round 2. Because of all these April birthdays, it's not uncommon for us to have a birthday land on Easter. 

In this case, Trin's birthday fell yesterday, the day before Easter. Celebrating was a little trickier this year due to the lockdown, and the fact that we were snowed in until yesterday morning so unable to get food/cake until an hour before her celebration. We decided to have a small birthday get-together with our Sheltering-In buddies (aka: My sister's family). My parents decided to come too, but vowed to maintain their social distance. This worked out really well for the first hour or so until they got buzzed and all caution flew out the window.

All in all Trin's birthday was a blast. I mean, a literal blast. In addition to playing Exploding Kittens, my brother in-law Jeremy was itching to try out a small, real-life cannon he had built that week, so we fired it once or twice.

Okay, it was six times. (Maybe seven). But that was only because Jeremy wasn't satisfied with the loudness of the blast. Apparently it wasn't boomy enough. So the boys kept adding more gun powder and more compression. More compression = dish towels and hamburger buns, by the way. The final time we fired the cannon, it was ear-splitting--the kind of noise that slams against your chest and rattles your inner core. We all went running and shrieking into the house, yelling "We are soooo busted!" totally convinced that the sheriff would be pulling up any second.

We dubbed it "Trinity's Birthday Boom." Good times.

That night we came home for Round 2 of Trin's birthday with Teri and Carey. Teri made an amazing chocolate cake from scratch topped with beautiful amethyst gemstones carved from sugar. She needs to be on one of those baking shows on Food Network. Anyway, they both did a great job of social distancing in the beginning too...even keeping their face masks on. But as the evening progressed, everyone got a little more comfortable--or less conscientious, and the masks came off. Today, as we celebrated Easter, social distancing sort of went out the window. We did our Easter Eggstravaganza, which is basically a tournament of egg-games, including the Egg Roll Off, Egg Drop, Egg Derby, and Egg Shoot Off. It was so much fun. Teri obliterated us. She won last year too, so that's two years in a row now that she gets to flaunt the ever-coveted Easter Eggstravaganza trophy.

(Yeah, I hear it. We're ridiculous).

After the egg tournament, we had our normal Easter egg hunt. The snow afforded a lot more hiding places and as I type this we are still missing six eggs.

Merry--er--Happy Easter!

Summer in the Hills

I doubt I'll be discussing summer, or hills. I just wanted a pretty post title.

Writing update. Here it is: Editing sucks and I quit.

Except for I'm not really quitting. But...arghhh. Black Lilies was finished at 102K. I've been going through and making cuts, and now I'm at 109K. See the problem? Any more cuts and I'm going to end up with something the size of Roots.

Change of subject. Hey, it just occurred to me that I live in the mountains (hills) and it's summer, so maybe I can make that post title work after all.

Summer. Summmeeeeeer.

Okay, I've been on summer break for a little over a week. It's been amazing with two little specks of not-amazing. The not-amazing specks include: 1) Said-editing issues above, and 2) Being hammered with a cold since the first day of break. Nothing that a little Ibuprofen can't help with, but it's still a bummer launching into summer as a stuffy ball of flem.

Aside from that, summer is wonderful so far! The weather has been gorgeous so we pretty much live outside, and every day is full of quaint little activities that make me feel like I'm living in a different era. Like, Trinity and I were invited to this sweet old lady's house yesterday for tea. Tea! Her name is Evelyn, and we met her at church. Her house is adorable; it looks like a little mountain cottage surrounded by a half acre of woods and lush vegetation. Tea time at Evelyn's is a legit event, complete with porcelain teapot, fancy cups/saucers, sugar and creamer dishes, and little cookies/pastries. When we finally left (after two hours), there was a white tailed deer chilling out in Evelyn's front yard. I mean, come on. It was too perfect. Pretty sure she planted that deer there just to make me swoon.

On Saturday (the day before tea) Teri and I, along with Elijah and Caleb (Trinity's boyfriend), walked to Alpine Camp to relax with some blended iced coffee and to play games. Afterwards, we rejoined the rest of our gang to decorate paper lanterns.

Trinity, Caleb, and Elijah coloring their lanterns

Later that night we all went to the Water Lantern Festival. This is our second year attending, and the releasing of the lanterns is breathtaking in person. They play beautiful music during the release, and it echoes across the lake. It's truly one of those "Damn I'm happy to be here on planet Earth" kind of moments.

 Trinity and Me

 Release of the Lanterns (ours are the colorful ones)

We also attended our town's annual Strawberry Festival earlier this week, where we enjoyed strawberry shortcake and freshly squeezed strawberry lemonade while taking in all of the different games and booths. I know, right? I can't even tell you if this is more or less quaint/cheesy than teatime at Evelyn's.

Besides all that, I've spent my days sprucing up the yard, reading the Little House on the Prairie series (I'm on a pioneer book kick right now--probably because my town has things like Strawberry Festivals and Evelyns inviting you over for tea), taking walks to the creek, playing Beat Saber with Elijah, and yelling at my manuscript.

I hope your summer is off to a good start. And maybe more 21st century than mine.

Happy New Year 2019

It's 2019! I want that year to sound like something special, but it really sounds so ordinary, no different than 2018, or 2017....one of those years that just blends. I think 2020 will feel more monumental. 

But still, we had a great new year. Just like we did last year, we went to a party at our local bowling alley. I guess that doesn't sound too exciting, but it's such a blast. There's unlimited food, drinks, chocolate fountain, bowling, and a DJ playing awesome music. Between friends and neighbors, Shannon ended up booking four lanes for all of us--21 people total. Our first game or two of bowling was taken more seriously, but toward 1:00 a.m., our bowling devolved to singing and dancing and gutter balls and total ridiculousness. Pretty sure the human body wasn't designed to bowl for more than two hours.

My pictures came out dark and blurry, so here are a few of Shan's:

 Shan & Jeremy (he's such a goofball!)

Me and Cass (my awesome niece), with Elijah & Dylan sort of in there too.

Trinity face-painting her boyfriend, Caleb

 Me, like, "Will you put the damn camera away?"

 Trinity & Caleb (they are so darn cute)

I have more but I don't want to violate friends'/neighbors' privacy by posting them. 

Happy New Year to you and yours!

Roasting Snowmen & Finding Pickles

This year was my favorite Christmas. But take that proclamation with a grain of salt because in the same way my favorite song in the whole wide world changes weekly, I always think this Christmas is the best.

But this one really was the best! Because we got a white Christmas. Growing up in the desert, snow on any day feels like a holiday. But snow on Christmas...holy crap. It feels like a miracle. I guess now that we live in the mountains, we can expect more white Christmases in the future. But based on the excited buzz from all the other mountain residents, I can tell snow on Christmas day is pretty rare, even for up here. So yeah, I might have been a little weepy about it. :P

Christmas was great in other ways too, besides the snow. Clint's parents spent the night on Christmas Eve. We did our normal pajama party with breakfast for dinner. But this year we played a new hilarious 'Build a Snowman' game with giant marshmallows. The roll of your dice determines which part you add to your snowman--eye, buttons, arm, etc. Clint kept putting body parts that didn't belong (I'll let you use your imagination on that one). Here's my guy, all adorable and un-obscene:

Later, when I won the game, in a show of good sportsmanship, Clint staked his snowman and roasted him in our fireplace. Then he ate him.

*Warning: The following images might be too graphic for younger viewers.

Okay, I might have had a bite of the fella too.  

We also played the most cutthroat gift-exchange game ever, one that makes the traditional White Elephant gift exchange seem polite. It would take too long to explain the rules here, but it was savage. And of course, as we do every year, we played 'Find the Pickle'. Here's some of us (our booties at least) searching for it.

Even George the dog had his nose in the tree, looking for that allusive pickle. Clint finally found it and won a frying pan.

Oh, and in the true tradition of Christmas, the boys ended up having a light saber battle on the patio.

On Christmas morning we woke up to snow! Oh yeah, I mentioned that already, didn't I. After oohing and ahhing over it, we ate breakfast with Teri and Carey and then opened up presents. Clint, the gift ninja, struck again. He built for me--from scratch--this hanging light fixture:

It's larger, prettier, and more rustic in person. I had NO idea I was getting this for Christmas, which Clint found amusing because apparently he and Elijah created quite a ruckus in the garage when they were whipping the wood beam with chains in order to distress it. (I can only imagine what our neighbors thought was going on).

Later that morning, we drove to my sister's house for Christmas with my side of the family, having to bulldoze our way through two unplowed roads. I'd like to say it was a chore, but we didn't care. Because...snow!

I was going to write more here about Christmas at my sis's, but I'm starting to lose steam. So I'll just sum it up by saying Shan's house was the usual craziness, with tons of delicious food, an entire fortress of presents, and lots of merriment.

That last part sounds cheesy, but it's allowed since this is a post about Christmas.

You Take a Piece of Meat with You

When I was seven, my sister and I argued in the car over the 1985 song "Every Time You Go Away." She claimed Paul Young was singing "Every time you go away, you take a piece of me with you." I was appalled, unable to conceive of why my sister viewed the singer's girlfriend as a cannibal who enjoyed walking away with a piece of his flesh every time the two parted ways. I told her it was clear that what Young was actually singing was "Every time you go away, you take a piece of meat with you." Because, you know, every one likes a snack for the road.

Anyway, we argued our points, both convinced that we were right, but with no way to prove it. The internet had yet to exist. 

Throughout the years, this occurred many times with many songs. And my sister and I weren't the only ones confusing lyrics. Even though it wasn't our generation of music, my entire graduating class used to sing Creedence Clearwater's song 'Bad Moon Rising' as:

Don't go around tonight 

Well, it's bound to take your life 

There's a bathroom on the right

Such a polite song, right? To stop in the middle of the lyrics to give listeners directions to the bathroom.

But it wasn't merely songs we debated about. It was any random topic under the sun. And the conclusion was always the same: There was no conclusion. Unless we were willing to go to the library to research answers to our questions (some of them nearly impossible to research, such as song lyrics or pop culture), we would never know--until we were adults--who was right and who was wrong.

It got me thinking: I miss those days. I miss the days where people engaged in lively debates without being able to immediately end the discussion with a quick fact-check on Google. I guess it's a funny thing to miss, but there's something I treasure about debating a pointless or silly topic for hours, knowing I'll never truly know who is right and who is wrong. As a kid, that suspension of an answer stretched a debate out for days, weeks, and sometimes (as was the case with the meat song), years. And then, ten years later when you finally have the solution to the riddle and you can put the argument to rest, it's that much more satisfying.

Having answers right at your fingertips with no waiting, wondering, or work (the old www) has taken away something special.

My Happy Place

I can't believe I'm posting this. It's still so surreal to me.

I'm moving! It has been my dream for years now to live in the mountains. Lucky for me this has been a shared dream; Clint has always wanted this too. We've done things in these last few years to make our lives in the desert more tolerable, like upgrading the interior of our home, putting in the pool, and so on, but in the end it all feels like putting lipstick on a pig. No matter how pretty we make this place, we still live in the desert, with scorching temperatures and blowing dust and people who simply don't take pride in their community. 

Don't get me wrong, I have no regrets over the work we've put into our house. The pool especially, because it has given us a reprieve from the oppressive desert heat for three summers now, and it's going to be a huge selling feature for our house. Likewise everything else we've added will increase our home's value. And honestly, we've had happy lives here. I grew up in the desert and it will always feel like home to me. But, for lack of a less corny way of saying it, my heart is happiest in the forest. I can't even describe the level of calm I feel when I'm nestled into trees. It's weird, right?...the different settings that bring serenity to different people? Your happy place might be the beach, the calming waves of the ocean. Or maybe it's open pastures...a rambling farm house with wide green spaces reaching for the horizon. In the same way, mine is the mountains, and no matter how much work I put into my current home, I just can't shake the desire for towering trees and fresh piney fragrances. So Clint and I decided to finally get serious about looking for a property up there (other factors played into this decision, but I'll just leave it at this for now). We ended up spending the first half of summer looking at land--even putting an offer on one parcel--thinking we'd build a home. But it turns out that the cost to build a home in the mountains is so astronomical that we'd be upside-down on our mortgage before we even moved into our new home. I always thought building a house was cheaper than buying, but I couldn't have been more wrong.

So after spending a month haggling and dreaming, we decided we just couldn't do it. This brought us to option #2, purchasing an already existing home. The tricky part of this plan is that mountain homes are...well, downright weird. Most are three stories with very compartmentalized rooms and bizarre floor plans. For example, one house we walked into had a front door that went straight into the kitchen. There was one other front door entrance on the lower level that went through the master bedroom. So for guests, I'd have a choice: Do I want them to see my dirty dishes or my dirty underwear? (Not that mine are dirty, of course, because anything coming out of me is pure sugar and sunshine). Hmmm. *scratches head*. Another house was loaded with mysterious stairs going into dark places with lots of crevices and crannies...it was like the Winchester House spawned an evil little lovechild. Some of the more "normal" floor plans in the mountains feature split levels, where you walk into a little platform and have to immediately decide whether you're going upstairs or down. I can't even entertain houses like this. It's like getting ready to enter an elevator and being greeted with, well, half the elevator. (I am the analogy queen!). 

No one is at fault for these bizarre floor plans, it's just that you're dealing with homes that are either built into the mountain or hanging off a cliff, so home-builders are forced to get super creative with their floor plans and utilize every bit of space they have available. And honestly, it turns out that looking at quirky mountain homes is a ton of fun. House hunting in the desert is pretty boring. "Here's another ranch...yep, another track home...oh look at that, another ranch...). But in the mountains, you never know what to expect when you walk through the front door. The exclamations from my kids ranged anywhere from "There's for sure a dead body buried over here" to "I call dibs on that dark basement room from the pits of hell!" (May have tweaked their wording a little). Needless to say, I made my peace with the fact that there was no way we were going to get a "normal" home. So our goal was simply to find as close to normal as possible. 

Enter: This house. It was love at first sight.

Front patio

Side-view of house

Street-view - One driveway goes to the carport, the other to the garage

Street view #2

Carport

Side-view of garage and studio apartment

My future writing lair and art studio! Or as Clint calls it, my she-shed.

Two car garage (rare in the mountains) with studio apartment above.
Apartment has one bedroom, a kitchenette, and a bathroom.

So there you have it. I'm sure I'll be posting more in the coming weeks, if I have time to breathe. Everything is happening so fast. Clint and I will be scrambling this month to get our current house cleaned out, repairs made, etc., so we can put it on the market. I guess I'm supposed to be packing too, but I just can't. While I have no problem imagining moving into the new house, I can't picture myself moving out of this house. So I need to wait a little longer for all of this to sink in before I can get my butt packing.

Nothing Says Happy Birthday Like Tasty Crickets

My birthday was a little over a week ago, and I have to say that this one was pretty wonderful. That morning when my students were entering first period, they loaded me up with brownies and birthday cards, and they sang to me. Horribly of course, but it was so freakin' sweet. I was stumped, wondering how they figured out it was my birthday. I found out later that Mr. Moore (my mischievous retired-teacher-friend) was subbing on our campus that week and had spilled the beans. I gave him an earful when I found out. Except for it was more like an eye-full since it was via texting.

Later that morning, Teri swung by my work and had a large caramel iced coffee from Jack in the Box delivered to my classroom. I guess that doesn't sound like a big deal, but the caramel-flavored one is my favorite, and it's been discontinued. She had to drive all the way to the Jack in the Box by the freeway to find a place that still had a little bit of the caramel syrup left. She also bought me two additional large coffees--sans the ice--and poured them into a bottle for me, so I could luxuriate in my favorite iced coffee a little longer before I lost them forever. 

When I came home from work, Clint, who likes to torture me with the present-opening process, made me work to win my gifts. I was given thirty seconds to run through the backyard and shoot as many clay pigeons as I could. Each clay pigeon had a gift taped to the inside. The catch was I had to watch out for "whammies"--clay pigeons that had "unconventional" gifts taped to them. The game was a blast (no pun intended). My favorite gift I won was this:

I think I about hyperventilated. I've been wanting some kind of gumball machine for my classroom for awhile, but this far exceeded anything I had imagined. Since I can't keep gum or candy in it (against school rules), Clint stuffed it with pencil toppers and miniature erasers. My students LOVE this thing. Clint got the machine from a company in China that manufactures candy dispensers for businesses, and he got all of the pencil toppers and erasers from Oriental Trading Company. Since he stuck with bulk items that were being clearanced out, each eraser ended up costing about two cents. When students put a quarter in, they get anywhere from 4 to 10 erasers. I'm planning to use the "profit" to buy more erasers.

Unfortunately, I did hit two whammy gifts. Whammy gift #1 landed me with three boxes of dehydrated crickets. On the plus side they came in a nice assortment of flavors (sour cream and onion, bacon and cheddar, and salt and vinegar). I gave them to students as prizes. I made a super big deal about it. "Now whoever does the best job on today's presentation wins a highly coveted, amazing prize. It's.....drumroll please.....some delicious crickets! Never say I don't love you." By the time Monday rolled around, my students were wondering what else they could do to win crickets, and I had to give them the bad news that we had run out. Seventh graders are awesome. 

Here's whammy gift #2:

This is Amelia. She's a Brittany--a hunting dog (primarily bird hunting). Clint and Elijah got their hunting licenses last month, and Clint's been pestering me ever since that he wants a hunting dog. One of the groups he and Elijah joined, Quail Forever, basically requires a hunting dog for their outings. You can always group up with others who have a dog, but it's not quite the same as having your own. While I understood all this, we already had three dogs. There was NO WAY IN HELL I was signing up for a fourth. So I told Clint that he was going to have to wait until Cricket (our nearly-11-year-old Corgi) passed away before getting his dog. 

Then I hit that stupid whammy. Which was clearly marked with a 'W', by the way. If I had hit the other two whammies, I would have ended up with a McDonalds frappuchino and a hug. BUT NO. I scored some crispy crickets and a damn dog. Yay me.

To be fair, I don't really notice the difference between three dogs and four. I think by the time you reach three you're already so saturated with mammals that adding one more into the mix is barely noticeable. Plus Clint's doing all the work of training her, so it's not so bad. Amelia is playful and super affectionate, and she's making it difficult to not like her.

Still, if we don't reign this pet-thing in soon, this is going to be us by next year:

(Clint texted me this photo the other day and I couldn't stop giggling)

Seriously, our household is a zoo. If there was ever any doubt, this is what I was dealing with while trying to read in the backyard this morning:

Tipsy and Fable--our obtrusive geese who are still struggling with the concept of personal space.

Murder Mystery Dinner

My daughter is 15 today. 15! I'm not old enough to have a 15 year old. I'M NOT. 

Shut-up.

Anyway, she's having a Murder Mystery Dinner in our backyard. They've been at it for about an hour and 45 minutes. I'm allowed to take pictures, but she says I'm not allowed to break the 3rd wall--or is it the 4th?--some drama-term where I can't shatter the illusion of the drama they're enacting. It's like Juliet dramatically crying out "Romeo, Romeo, where art thou Romeo?" and someone else cutting in with "Hey, fifth period is almost over." 

So we agreed I would just pop in and out as an investigative reporter. Here's all that my investigative snooping has yielded so far:

Guests starting to suspect each other

Let the interrogations begin

A very suspicious dinner

It's pretty cool, actually. Every time I go out there, they're totally in character (save some giggling and laughing). There was one moment where I lit the candles on the table and Trin was all "Wow, thank you, uh, Investigative Reporter, for lighting our candles. That's so nice and...unexpected." But you know, apparently I'm both an investigative reporter and a thoughtful candle-lighter-person.

I was going to write more but Trin just burst in here saying they solved their murder! Apparently Papa Vido killed Barry Underwood because he was promised land or something... They're popping open their victory champagne now (aka: sparkling cider) and then we're doing birthday cake. The cake is an adorable, partially decapitated jackalope (made by Teri). Jackalopes are somehow related to murder mysteries, right?

--------

Just came back from singing Happy Birthday. Here are the last few pictures for the night:

That poor torched jackalope.

Happy Birthday to my little girl! The one who is now four inches taller than me and could easily kick my ass. But she's still, and always, my baby girl, and I don't care if that's a cliché, because it's true.

Chasing Echoes Sweat Shop

That ridiculous grin above pretty much sums up how I feel about my book signing event. I honestly expected, like, five people to show up. Instead, it was a whirlwind of people! At the library. On a Saturday. The day before the Super Bowl. Who knew?  I will say that I would have been totally overwhelmed if my family wasn't there. Especially Shan, who handled sales while I was autographing books and interacting with visitors. My parents stayed the whole time too for moral support, and just having them there was awesome. I feel so grateful that I forever have this event banked as my "first" author's event, because as far as firsts go, this one rocked.

Note for next event though: Bring WATER. And maybe a snack. But mainly H2O. There was never a stopping point for me to fetch something to drink, and my throat was so dry by the end of the event that I'm sure I sounded like some hissing she-demon, or like I had sucked in sulfer hexafluoride (okay, clunky metaphor, but that gas has some pretty funny effects). After it was over, my family and a few friends went to Chili's for an early dinner, and the first thing I did was march to the bar and guzzle down a glass of water. Which is saying a lot because I really don't drink water, so a glass of water for me is like a pitcher for you (I did follow the water with a giant margarita chaser just to make things right with the world again).  

Now that I've made it through my first author's event, I'm chomping at the bit to do more. So Clint and I have been researching different possibilities for community events. Sadly there's not much in my neck of the woods, but starting in May, in my local mountains, there's THIS:

Okay, I swear I'm not a lush, even if my choice of book-promoting venues might beg to differ. Anyway, this event takes place the first Saturday of every month from May to October. Here's the description on the Chamber of Commerce's Calendar:

"Walk up and down Lake Drive through unique antique shops and artists' booths; stop, sit and enjoy tasty wines, beers and snacks while listening to music and enjoying the mountain air."

I REALLY want to do this. If I create some kind of crafty item to go along with my book, then I qualify to participate in this event as a vendor. So Clint and I came up with the idea of creating Sands of Time necklaces--each with a small bottle containing the same sand as the necklace that Uncle Kiel gave to Taz. Clint came up with a simple design that only costs us about $1.60 per unit to make, and each necklace would come with a small "ancient" scroll that tells the legend of the Sands of Time. In addition, my mother in-law is working on a prototype for some gorgeous stationery representing the four seasons. She's also making beautiful scented Krystal, Phoenix, Topaz, and Aviva soaps, each packaged with a seasonal charm. So we've got this crafty stuff covered. The problem is this Wine & Stein event is so NOT the target audience for my book. Originally I had imagined that anyone could walk into the event and peruse the various vendors, and that the wine tasting component was totally optional. This translated to families with kids/teens visiting my booth. But I just discovered that there is a $20 cover charge just to enter the event. Translation: No kids, no teens; not even young adults (how many 21 year olds do you know who go to wine tastings? They're still in the honeymoon phase with BARS). Basically at the core of it all this IS a wine tasting, so I'm totally bummed.

Even after discovering all of this, I might go to the first one anyway (there're six total), just because it sounds so cool. 

No matter what though, I still want to make all the crafty stuff. At the minimum I can still attend Jamboree Days in July, and Tumbleweed Days in September (it's not really called Tumbleweed Days, btw. I'm just in the habit of calling it that). Plus I love the idea of having little trinkets representing my book spread out on my table, just to highlight the whole homespun small-house publishing look. So Clint and I ordered our supplies, and sometime next week we'll start our own little Chasing Echoes Sweat Shop. I am SO EXCITED.

And based on the frozen shell-shocked stares coming from my kids, they are so excited too!

Wish me luck gluing stuff together. And finding more appropriate authors' events that don't involve stumbling through a mile of pine trees buzzed.

The Fancy Puddle--COMPLETE

Our pool is filling up with water right now. RIGHT NOW, as I type this blog entry. Check it out:

Oh my gosh you guys! We have a pool! I can NOT believe it. Granted it only has about a foot and a half of water right now, but I AM IN AWE. I'm not the kind of person who owns a pool. I'm the kind of person who has to duct-tape her broken shoe together in the middle of her shift. That's who I am. Not this grown-up person who has a pool.

I promise I'll get over this soon. 

Here was the pool earlier today, right after the plaster was finished:

Can you believe you use a garden hose to fill a pool? I don't know what I was expecting to use, but it cracks me up every time I walk outside, seeing that tiny hose guzzling away, taking on such a huge job...the little engine that could. Gary (our pool guy) says the pool will be full by tomorrow. Then we can treat it with its cocktail of necessary chemicals, and it will officially be ready for occupants on Saturday. Since our 'pool warming' party is on Saturday, we're cutting it a little close.

To sum up the whole installing a pool experience, I would say it's sheer bliss for the first two weeks when your contractors are doing all the work, but then it's pretty much hell when you're trying to pass inspection. I swear we barely made it. We failed our inspection on Tuesday, and Gary had to beg the supervisor to come yesterday to reevaluate our fence. We finally passed inspection yesterday, just in time for the crew to plaster today.  

I have to hand it to Gary. Our pool was originally promised by June 18th, and he delivered it today, on June 19th. One mere day late, despite all of the obstacles that got in the way...including the fact that our plaster crew flaked out on us today and Gary had to hire new ones at the last minute. Seriously, it's insane we have a completed pool tonight.   

We still have some work ahead of us (covered patio and rock-scape), but for now I just want to lay in my backyard and watch that little puddle grow.

P.S. I asked Clint what I should title this post, and he said "Rubba Dub Dub This is a Big Damn Tub."