A public one? Really?

When I was 8 years old, my parents had an in-ground pool put in our backyard.  It happened that the pool was installed very close to my birthday that year so I always felt the pool was a little bit more mine than my brothers.  Although, I doubt he would agree with that.  Having the good fortune of your parents putting a pool in just for you on your birthday, creates never having a need to pay to go swimming.  Then deciding to live your adult life within 30 minutes of your parents home, you continue to not have to pay to go to the pool.  It is great!!!  In my 30 plus years of life, I have gone with a friend to the pool just a small handful of times.  Three times that I can actually remember.  Vacation is different.  It is a public pool, but it comes with the cost of your vacation.

My children  have all been to a public pool with a friend at least once.  Two of them have gone to Swift Run pool in Elkton.  There is a high dive there (my parents don't have one of those--just a regular diving board) as well as a couple of slides.  Again, my parents just have a little kiddie slide that we move to the edge of the pool and throw water on it ourselves.  This is not an issue for me.  I LOVE going to my own pool.  Ryan and Lydia have shared their stories of Swift Run pool with Emily.  Emily has been to public pools, but apparently they only had diving boards that were "not all that high."  So sad.  :)

I have fought them tooth and nail to NOT go to Swift Run pool.  It is about 15 minutes from our house so I feel if I am going to drive that far, I may as well go to my parents pool.  Emily has been dying to go on the high dive and I can remember LOVING the high dive that was at the JMU pool where I took swimming lessons as a kid.  The first time I went off of it, I was two or three years old and my mom said they just held me over the water and dropped me.  Obviously I survived and continued to go on my own.  So, having this memory made me want to see that she have the same experience . . . so yesterday we went to Swift Run pool.

$24 for the 4 of us to swim for the day!!  $24!!!  Is this a common amount for public pools?  $6 a person seems like a lot especially since you have to be a certain height to go off of the diving boards and slides.  Ryan and Emily were tall enough for everything, but Lydia was too short to go off the big sliding board.  This caused a bit of a problem, but Ryan and Emily did not go down this slide all day or anything and Lydia was still able to go down the smaller slide and all the boards.  I still felt she should have at least been only $5.  The owner did not agree.

They all did have a great time so I took some pictures to document this trip to a public swimming pool.  :)

 Lydia on the high dive.  Sure wish she would not hold her nose when she does this.  :)

                          Ryan on the high dive

 Emily running off the high dive while Ryan and Lydia look on.

                              Ryan and the big slide





















The splash he made while coming off the slide and skimming across the water.

This is my favorite.  Emily coming off of the big slide, Ryan getting out of the water and getting ready to go on something again and poor Lydia watching her and wishing she could be tall enough to go.  :(

Best 30 bucks I ever spent!

My brother, Paul and his wife, Allison, told us about the little kiddie pool they saw and my niece, Adella, used while visiting my Uncle Bill and his family over the weekend. We had been wanting to get the kids a softside pool or something, but did not know what route to take. After hearing about this one, we went online and found one that fit the same description at Target. I drove into Target that evening, set it up, and they have been having a great time ever since! Definitely the best 30 bucks I ever spent!! (small note, please ignore the scraps of wood in the yard, we are building a deck)