Roll Tide

We are off today for Alabama's first football game of the season.  We play Michigan at Cowboy Stadium in Arlington, Texas.  We will fly and now will have to possibly fly around Hurricane Isaac.  Lovely.  It should be a great game.

This could be another great season for us.  Some "experts" have predicted we could win another National Championship.  We will see in a few months.

The Olympics ended and the US did great.  We ended up with more medals and more gold medals than any other country.

Gas prices are going up.  I think it is about $3.59 or more a gallon.  Ugh.  Nuff said.

This is not a lot of information or much detail, but I have a plane to catch. 

Roll Tide,
Tide Gal

More Updates

We got our fingerprints done on Tuesday, May 28.  This is our last fingerprints in this program.  Not sure where we are headed now.  Hm....

The 2012 Summer Olympics in London are in full force now.  We are having a blast watching them, but having a problem staying awake late to watch the best events.

We are starting to get ready for football season.  We should have a decent team and our first game is against Michigan in Arlington, TX at the big house.  Should be fun.

More later....
Tide Gal

Pool Update

Well, I looked at my blog and realized some of the posts as far as the pool timeline are gone.  Yep.  Not sure what happened.  All of June seems to be gone.  It may be a good thing because our concrete guys were a bunch of yahoos and jar heads.  Not days I really want to remember.  The first company was here for six (6!!!!) weeks.  They should have needed 2, maybe 3, weeks.  Disgusting.  Then as they tried to repair major mistakes, they would destroy something else.  It was a never ending process.  So, we fired them.  Period.  Do not come back.

Fast forward three weeks and we have a new company on site to do repairs.  Things started going in the same directions.  Like, it started good, then they got sloppy.  The day they should have finished I left for thirty minutes.  I had told them certain things that needed repaired, fixed, or cleaned before they left.  They were gone when I got back. Thirty minutes?  Really?  They had finished what they were working on, pressured washed, packed up, and were GONE!! Thirty minutes.  Yep.   I couldn't believe it.  And, I had completely wasted my breath because they did nothing I had told them to do.  Needless to say I was hot and not happy.  Tide Guy called the owner, gave him some really bad news and told him they better return or they wouldn't get paid one cent.  The owner was not happy to say the least.  But he did show up the next day with the same crew.  He called Tide Guy and told him he now understood why we were upset.  He would now be at our house and make sure everything got done correctly.  It took them another week.  So, we had concrete guys at our house for 4 months.  This job should have taken three weeks at the longest.

We are enjoying the pool.  We still need to put up a fence and lay sod around the area.  We also need to complete the patio with a ceiling, lights, and fans. 

Tide Gal

Prep Work

The concrete guys are here right now.  Two guys are working on the coping and the other two are preparing the ground for concrete.  It looks like they are doing a good job.  I'm not sure when the head guy is returning, but so far I'm happy with their work so far.  I hope they are done by the end of the week.

The Niece got the game ball at her game last night.  She played third base and did very good.  She got out four runners by catching a grounder and tagging her base.  They lost again, but the coach told them if they had fun then they won.  So, they all think they won the game.  So far, they have lost every game, and actually only got close in one. 

We have not received a notice for a new fingerprint date yet.  I mailed in the form last week, so maybe we will hear something in a few days.
Gas prices are dropping a little at a time.  Yea!  But we will take it.

Tide Gal

Just Too Cold

Yesterday, The Niece came over to swim.  Boy, was the water cold.  She finally got in and stayed about an hour.  She had fun, but it was just too cold. 

Thursday night her preschool graduation was fun to watch.   She did well and got her diploma.

We are supposed to get rain for the next few days, so I'm not sure about the concrete time line.

Tide Gal

No Concrete, No Fingerprints

The concrete guys came on Monday.  However, the lead guy will be out of town for about a week due to his grandmother's illness.  He turned over the job to another guy and told me he would make sure the new guy knew and understood everything before they left for the day.  I relayed the information to Tide Guy.  Later, Tide Guy spoke with the owner and told him we would like to wait for the lead guy to return before completing the job.  The lead guy is amazing, understands what needs to be done, and runs a tight ship.  This is a one time deal for us.  Once things are done, they can't be redone.  So, we will wait for him.  They did return Tuesday to do some forming and used a bobcat to level some areas.  Unfortunately, Tide Guy realized last night that in the process of leveling, they pushed excess dirt and rock over a sump pump line. Not only did they bury the line, they pushed over the stake marking the pipe.  If we had gotten a lot of rain this pipe could have backed up into the basement and flooded it.  So, last night, Tide Guy had find the buried pipe and dig it out.  Tide Guy was not happy. We hope the lead guy will be back on Monday or early next week to get this job done.  We are ready to have concrete around the pool rather than gravel, dirt and mud.

Our fingerprint appointment was this morning.  Yesterday, Tide Guy mentioned how he wasn't sure how he would be able to break away from work for a few hours for the appointment.  After a few hours of research I was able to contact someone and was told I could mail in the form and get a new appointment at a later time.  It will probably be in a few weeks. 

The Niece graduates from preschool this evening.  She is so excited.  Mostly that she won't have to go there and do "rest time" anymore.  Rest time is putting heads on the table for 15 minutes during the day.  The only problem she ever had at preschool was this rest time.  Last year she got in trouble for not keeping her head down for the whole time or making noises during this time.  I finally got her to admit she was afraid during this time because the lights were off.  With that said, I don't know how she will handle "rest time" at kindergarten which is longer and on a mat on the floor.  She thinks she has it all figured out.  She will tell us she does not have to close her eyes and she can hold her head up.  I have a feeling this may end up with some funny and interesting stories.

Tide Gal

Let's Swim

Saturday afternoon I added all the salt to the pool and a few hours later the pool guy arrived to all the chemicals.  We were ready to swim the next day.  We did not swim as we were preparing for the concrete guys to come today and worked until after 7 pm.  We had to pull wires through conduit for the lights in the steps, clean under the deck, and various other tasks.  The concrete guys are to begin preparing the area underneath the deck.  Unfortunately we are supposed to get a lot of rain tomorrow and possibly today, so the work will stop for a day or so.

We go Thursday to have our fingerprints done for the last update until we travel to China.  We are doing our last free update just in case China changes and allows us to follow the same path we are now on.  If not, in 18 months we will be forced to change to the I-800.  Also on Thursday is The Niece's preschool graduation.

Gas prices are dropping a bit and at our local gas pump, the price is $3.55.

Tide Gal