We finally have a swimming pool. It’s been a long and frustrating saga.

Last Friday evening, after the kids went to bed, we rolled out the pool, which had been delivered by UPS on Thursday. We followed the instructions (most of them) and started filling it with water.

Turns out, that bit about “level ground” was pretty important, as I should have known, since I was a physics minor in college. About 1000 gallons later, we had a pool with about two feet in one end, and maybe 6 inches in the other end, tilting precariously. We knew this wasn’t going to work, but decided to let the kids play in it before starting over.

Saturday morning, they came out and were tickled pink, which was the desired effect, but after about 2 hours of playing, the edge finally dipped, and all that water went thundering down the hill, washing away our gravel path and generally wreaking havoc.

Being impatient, we went for the quick fix, and bought a bunch of sand bags to prop up the bottom end. As the water reached the top of the sand wall, it dragged the side over to the other side of the wall, and there it lay, until finally we couldn’t prop it up any more, and we lost another flood down the hill.

Now ready to follow the instructions, we started digging, and have been digging all week, a few hours a day, until about 8 last night when we deemed it done. In retrospect, we should have taken a few more steps to smooth the ground, but we decided it was good enough, and by about 11 last night, we had a serviceable pool. It still needs to fill a little bit, but it’s level now, and ready for the screaming kids.

Unfortunately, neither of the kids are with us this weekend. But at least we can enjoy a little time in the pool now, and try to recover from our aches from a week of digging.