(I had a huge, wonderful blog post here detailing our entire build, and then lost the whole flipping thing…this is a brief, but horrible rendition of said original).
Jake and I are excited to announce that we have officially begun the process of building a pool in the back yard! Today we finalized and signed the contract with our pool builder, JRI Pools (Fayetteville, GA) and mailed our deposit — things are getting real. They are scheduled to begin the dig next Friday or the following Monday, and supposedly it will take 4 to 6 weeks (although I am betting on more like 8 to 10 weeks as I’m certain there will be at least one torrential rainstorm every other day once they begin).
Zella is our primary reason for putting a pool in at this moment in time. Initially we thought we would wait until all our kids were excellent swimmers (so giving it another couple of years at the earliest), but Zella threw a kink in our plans. She does weekly physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech, but she has made the *most* progress in her aqua therapy, done at Katie’s Pool, an adapted aquatics center. We feel like opting to build the pool now rather than later will greatly benefit Zella in the long run, so we are going for it!
Jake has fond memories growing up with a pool, but with those fond memories come newer, darker images of treating drowning and near-drowning victims as a pediatrician. We realize the only *real* way to prevent a drowning is by constant, vigilant adult supervision at all times. In order to further mitigate our risk, we have opted to have an automatic pool safety cover installed as well. This will give us some additional protection while simultaneously allowing the kids to use other parts of the backyard as usual.
Below is our pool plan…plus some images we used as inspiration for the pool. Once they begin excavation, I will update with actual photos 😀
