OK, no biggie.....we're pretty good at doing things ourselves and my dad is the ultimate do-it-yourselfer, so we began the project. It was the beginning of February when we took the van to have a hitch installed- this was a one day project that involved a lot of carpooling, etc so we could leave the van at UHaul all day. It worked out pretty well.
The next step was actually GETTING the tub from BJ's and bringing it home. Unfortunately, the closest BJ's sold their only model, so we had to go to one a bit further away. This is only relevant because we were now carting around a 76" high tub (on its side on a pallet) in an open trailer that was probably about 50" high on the sides. There was definitely a "topple over" factor involved! Anyway, we scored because this tub was amost $500 less than the one we were looking at and had more features- woohoo!!!!
Actually loading the tub was pretty easy once the 10 guys the manager brought out to the door to lift the thing told their manager she was nuts and just lifted it with the forklift. The trip home was a little nervewracking, but otherwise uneventful. Unloading was another issue altogether- George had already knocked down the fence on the side of the house so we could pull the van around the back, but the trees limited how far we could pull in. So much for rollling the tub right off where we eventually wanted it. The next issue was that the ground was soft so once the corner of the pallet was off the trailer, it dug into the mud. Luckily, we had rented some dollies, so with a little ebow grease we pushed and pulled the sucker off. As fate would have it, we couldn't back the van up with the position of the tub and the trailer, so we had to unhitch the trailer and manually turn it around and pull it out. Who said pregnancy was a "delicate condition???"
THat ended the big progress for quite a while. We slowly amassed the parts we would need- fusebox and parts, wires, stones, etc. George chopped down the cherry tree in the place where we wanted to put down the tub. We hired a guy to come with a super-cool stump grinder. He was nice enough to use his machine to level out the ground for us!!!!
We now had a ot of crappy weather- snow, rain, cold, etc....so little progress was made. Next we had a visit from my parents, so dad went to work on the wiring and fuses. He couldn't do too much since it was miserable out, but he got a start and showed George what had to be done next. Over the next couple of weeks, George dug the trench for the electrical and did some masonry work laying the stones. Everything was set for the master electrician to do his magic!
My parents arrived Wed evening and while mom took Anya to swimming, dad went right to work on the electrical stuff in the cold and rain-what a trooper! THe next day, he and George managed to move the tub to its spot and lay it on the side. By the time I came home from work it was ready to fill. It took over night to heat up, but this morning, this is what we did:
Both kids had a BLAST playing in the water. Anya demonstrated her swimming skills and Baz just splashed and splashed. He threw a huge tantrum after we got out the first time, but I think after the second dip today, he gets that the tub isn't going anywhere!
I'd just like to thank everyone who helped us, especially my mom and dad. Hopefully we'll have lots ot good times in it!
1 comment:
that's so awesome! yay!
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