Pool daze

It's beautiful weather here this week. We had the roofers in on tuesday and they finished in one day and then sat and drank beer on the front lawn (distant cousin of mine so we know they did a good job!). I had 5 kids here that afternoon and the hoses hooking the water filter to the pool exploded. I panicked - when I came out of the house Connor was trying to jam them together and water was squirting everywhere! I grabbed the end attached to the pool and held it up over my head and reached down to see if I could turn it off when it snapped at the base of the pool! So I grabbed the other hose, thinking I could attach it back to the pool and bypass the filter and it snapped off in my hand! I don't know what made them so brittle, but man! Meanwhile, Aidan's friend is yelling "I didn't mean to!" and I'm yelling "What did you do?!?" When they snapped I realized he hadn't done anything, but by then he was standing on the deck with his towel over his head. Poor kid! He thought he'd wrecked the pool and I sure didn't help with my panic. Spelled out like this it doesn't seem as bad, but water was gushing everywhere and I'm yelling and the kids are yelling and the roofers are doing God-knows-what. Finally one of them came down and jammed plastic in the hoses and I called Sean who calmly told me how to block the filter pipes. In the end the kids went swimming and all was well, but it was mayhem for a while! I don't know what got into me, I always think I do well in an emergency. Looking back now, I really don't think I do (and those of you who have always known this can hold back your snickers please!)

We also got the basketball net put together (not easy!) and the kids have been out there playing every day. They start about 9:00 in the morning and play for a while. Then we've been going for a bike ride or something, a little swimming and we sleep very well at night!

We are going camping on the weekend. I'm looking forward to it. We always have a good time and it's nice family time. I always come home wondering why I need a great big house when we make out just fine in our little tent. I now have two air mattresses, so the kids won't be pushing me off the air mattress anymore. We didn't go camping at all last summer because it was so lousy, but this summer we've got a couple of weekends booked with friends. I'd also like to go to the lake for a week or so with the kids but our time is already getting to be pretty booked up. The kids start camp on the 18th for two weeks and then July will be over! Why can't the winters go fast and the summers drag on??