So it's been a while...

Lots going on in the life of the Cox house. You lose time before you realize it. I haven't blogged in quite some time now. Anyway, summers been good. Only 1 more week until vacation, yippee!!! Let me just say, it is WAY overdue!! I'm definitely gonna cry when I have to come back, lol. We're going with Sam's family, and mom and Ronnie to St. George Island in Florida. Hoping the beaches are not filled with oil, but if they are, I'll just have to play in the beach house swimming pool. We even have our own jacuzzi too. Maybe God will slow down time so we can enjoy it and get the much needed rest that we deserve. Everyone deserves at least a week of undisturbed peaceful vacation. I realize not everyone is privileged enough to take getaway vacation, but I thank God that we are, and that we can do it would our family.

We've been enjoying the swimming pool A LOT this year. Its even warm enough now that we can swim in the evenings. Very relaxing, I must say. Caitlyn is having a blast!! Last weekend, cousin Regan came and stayed. The girls had a great time playing in the pool and destroying the house. I guess I'm used to Caitlyn playing with a few things at one time then we make her put them up. But when friends come to play, they become a tornado force and next thing I know, I walk in the playroom and you can't even see 1 inch of carpet, lol. I'm not even going to try imagining life with another child. I really wish I would go ahead and have another child so that Caitlyn wouldn't have her sibling too far apart, but its been an ongoing battle to get my body back to where it was pre-pregnancy. Very depressing I might add. Its tough!! But me and Shawn are working on it and we're doing pretty good I think.

Did I mention vacation is next week????

The pool is officially up : )

So we put the pool up on Saturday. It was FREEZING!! I had to get in just to straighten the liner, and after the initial numbness to the toes, I was good. Ready to play, lol. I'm sure my neighbors think I'm crazy, putting up a pool in 50 degree weather. But actually, I have a theory. Last year the pool cover we used kept moisture contained when the sun was shining on it, so when we'd uncover it, it'd actually be pretty warm. So even though this year's pool is larger, we're gonna try it out. This week, its supposed to be in the 70's and increasing to 80 degrees on Saturday. So we're gonna keep it covered all week and uncover it on Saturday to see how it feels. If its still cold, we've not lost anything, just saved us from having later work to do. If it does work, I'm gonna be in that thing all day Saturday, while my neighbors are jealous their pools aren't up yet, lol : )

We thought last year's pool cover would fit on the newer pool cause its not that much bigger and it was kinda too big for last years pool. But when we tried covering it, it wasn't big enough. So I ran to Anderson to pick up a cover to fit. When I got back and finished putting the cover on, I was cleaning up only to find a brand new cover in the bottom of the pool box. Ugh! I was so mad that I wasted all that gas to Anderson, but happy I could return the cover for something else we need; a pool light.

We bought this light that shoots different colors and rotating patterns of LED's through the water on all the walls of the pool, plus its a fountain. It's so freakin cool! We uncovered the pool last night just to see how well it'd light up and its awesome!!! Definitely gonna get some good use out of that this year.

What's going on these days...

Caitlyn will be 3 on Monday, gosh time flies!! We're having it at Monkey Joe's. She's never been there but she loves stuff like that, so I'm really excited. It's supposed to rain Sunday evening; maybe it'll hold out until we're done and home. This past weekend was so beautiful; Caitlyn and I went to Atlanta to have her birthday party with her cousins. We went to the park and played; it was sooooo beautiful. Sun was out with a breeze to keep the sweat off (I did sweat just a little, ha). But it was so nice!! Then they were calling for snow flurries on Sunday night. I's like WHAT THE HECK?!!? Anywayz, had a wonderful weekend! Shawn didn't get to go because he was in the last fishing tournament for the fishing year in the category he's in. He found out that he still holds record for BIG FISH. So they're going to present him his award on Saturday night for biggest fish of the year. It was 7 lbs. I believe. He caught it back in October I think. Don't worry, I'll post his trophy. So proud of him.

Caitlyn has her first dentist appt next Thursday. Kinda worried about that. But I asked the dentist what they do, cause you know a 3 yr old is NOT gonna let anyone put their hands in her mouth, lol. They said they play with them and just get to know them, show them the utensils, and what they do with them, and just let them get familiar with everything, which I think is great!! So hopefully it won't be too bad. Maybe they'll get lucky and she'll let them look around in her mouth. We'll see : )

I'm thinking about putting the pool up this weekend. Yeah I know...it's still too cold. But really, we have a pool cover and I swear last year that thing felt like a mild hot tub after coming home from work with the pool covered all day. Then to uncover it and it would be warm. What's the harm? If it doesn't work this early, we'll let it sit until its warm enough. Go run around the neighborhood on a warm Saturday, work up a sweat, and come back to a cold pool. That's the BEST!!!!

Swimming

So this is the pool that my sister-n-law got for me for free. She didn't want it because its more a real pool rather than a kiddy pool. I originally wanted the 16' pool for myself, but then she came across this one on the web, someone giving it away for free. And she thought it was smaller, but when she went to pick it up and saw it had chemicals and a filter, she didn't want it. So she gave it to us. I was totally excited. We set it up and I was just happy we had something to get wet in on a hot day. When looking for pools, I was real leary about these easy set pools. They just looked like they'd be hard to work and probably a piece of junk. But I tell ya, this is the best thing, probably better than what we originally wanted in the 16' pool.

It's 10x30, so it's only about 2 feet deep. But its completely perfect for the three of us. I mean, absolutely perfect. Caitlyn can stand up in there and we can sit down and play with her or we can float. I started thinking, I would've had the roughest time with a deeper pool, especially having to hold Caitlyn the whole time, because floaties are good, but they won't keep a child's face out of the water. And Caitlyn's definitly a curious swimmer. So we filled the pool up on Friday night and swam all day on Saturday, I've got a nice lobster burn to prove it, lol, most of it's gone away by now, except my back and my right thigh, lol. But I'd have to say, if this were a purchased product, it would've been the most absolute best purchase we would've made. And I'm glad it worked out this way where it was given to us, because I never even thought to get this small of a pool, or this type of pool. But it is great!! And believe it or not, the water is warm. I guess because its a small pool, the water can warm up faster, plus we have a cover we keep on it. But we can lay in there at night and its so warm. Its great!!

Charlotte

What a difference in temperature from GA to NC. We woke up this morning and Shawn wanted to walk down to the lake and fish a little. It was around 7:30 and I was like, no, it'll be hot. Well, we ended up going down there anyway and it was freezing. We went uptown a little while ago and it was still cool. I can walk outside for 2 seconds in GA and I start sweating. So it's been pretty nice. We're about to go out on the pontoon and swim a little bit. Then tonight, we gonna drive up to Mooresville. They're having something for the 4th, some fireworks and kids stuff going on. There's gonna be a band in downtown Davidson, might go to that too. Anyway, I'm hoping we get to go to the pool tomorrow. Believe it or not, I've been swimming in oceans and lakes this summer, but no pools. Oh, I'm having pool withdrawels. We were thinking about getting a pool a couple weeks ago, but some things have changed in our life and I think we're going to wait on the pool, atleast for now anyway.

Well, everyone's ready to go to the lake. I gotta go get my swimsuit on. See ya!!