Double Whammy Celebration!

Today I am having a little double whammy celebration here at the house with a few people and I got lots to do!

Thursday will be Andrea's birthday and I usually try to take her to lunch or something but I will be out of town. For those that don't know I never really consider Andrea a friend but instead she is my sister, she is also the mother to my 3 Goddaughters. Years ago when we had more friends live close to us I would have a get together with the girlfriends and it was a lot of fun but as years pass and people move away the annual celebration just fizzled out. Now our daughters are grown and we can enjoy celebrating with them and this will be the first time our two families have celebrated her birthday and I am more than a little excited. 

Sadly her daughter Eboni isn't able to make it down from Broken Arrow and Amber has to work but I think she will be able to make it later this evening when she gets off. Her daughter Ashley, her husband Daryl and their son Carter will make it over along with Andrea and her husband Glen. Yes I have a God Grandson and I a totally in love with that little boy! I even paid for him to go to swim lessons because I knew I was going to have the pool this year and I wanted him to be able to not be afraid of the water and from all reports he is doing fantastic and loves the water. Today will be his first day in my pool and I am as giddy as a school girl to have him in the pool with me as I am a person who loves the water. And of course my daughter and son-in-law will be here.

I need to wash some baker potatoes and I have NY strip steak in the fridge ready to set out so they can achieve room temperature before putting them on the grill. We will also be having grilled veggies, which include Squash, Zucchini, cherry tomatoes, yellow pepper, orange pepper, red pepper, bell pepper and mushroom. I totally forgot to get a red onion to put in it! I have it marinating in Zesty Italian dressing with some minced garlic and lemon juice. I got a few Lock N Lock bowls a couple of years back and those things are awesome for marinating such things because I can just flip the bowls every so often to make sure everything gets coated well. 

Anyway back to my day and the second part of the celebration is the Grand Opening of my pool! So far only my daughter and I have swam in it and that was to help get the salt dissolved after we put in 260 pounds of that stuff. 

I still need to get the back yard mowed around the pool. Hopefully it is dry enough now. We've had hot weather but with super high humidity and that just doesn't work well with drying out the grass much. I also need to put down some stepping stones for a temporary walk way from the deck to the pool to help keep down on the dirt in the pool and also help people avoid slipping in any possible mud that might accumulate. 

My salt water chlorinator came in on Thursday and I was able to get it hooked up and running. I did a lot of research on sizes and such before ordering and found that the Intex 120 Krystal Clear Saltwater System would work for the size of my pool and ordered it from Walmart because it was a little cheaper than the one I saw on Amazon. Or at least I thought it was, it was actually a few bucks more because of the tax that was added through Walmart. 

It was easy to set up and the hose connects and hoses worked perfectly so I didn't need to do any adjustments. It has ran two cycles since I hooked it up and I do feel better knowing it got to run two cycles before people will be swimming in it today.

Last night I decided to go ahead and order my sand filter because my cartridge pump is leaking at the top where the cartridge is located and I'll have my son-in-law take a look at it today when he comes over. I knew I would be ordering one but was going to wait but with not wanting to mess with having to fix the leak all the time I bit the bullet and ordered. From everything I read it will be a lot easier and keep the pool cleaner than the cartridge system so I don't think I will regret the purchase. The picture is the one that I ordered and it is the Intex Krystal Clear Sand Filter Pump and has a 3000 GPH flow and will work perfectly with the salt water chlorinator.  

As much as I would love to keep typing and talking to you lovies I got chit to do and time is a wastin!