When we came to San Jose to find our house, we basically lived through an episode of “House Hunters International.” The relocation specialist that Willy’s company provided a list of suggested properties, based off criteria that we supplied and included a few homes that we had found online. We had one day to see twelve houses; twenty minutes in each house. If we were lucky, we got those twenty minutes, but we also had to deal with traffic, agents who were late, and agents who brought the keys to the wrong house. It’s somewhat amazing that we found a house at all.

Going in, we figured that we were moving to California, so our priority items for the house included a pool. It turned out to be a pretty easy wish to fulfill, given that all but one of the houses we saw had a pool. Thankfully, the house we chose also came with a pool guy, saving us from having to figure out how to maintain the pool. I think that this was included to save the pool from damage more than as a perk for renters, but we were OK with that.

Our pool guy is not the stereotypical “pool boy”, who is more eye candy than anything else. He is a really nice, knowledgeable guy who has helped us to understand how we can help to keep the pool warm and safe for our lils. He has also offered great tips on maintaining the hot tub, which we are responsible for. He seems to like us too, and is always pleased when we take his advice.

It was our hope that the pool would be available for use year-round, but the lack of supplemental heater and the cloudy, rainy, and “cold” winter days meant that the solar heater and covers were doing very little, so we packed everything up and closed the pool after one last cold swim in early December. The lils were sad, but they could see that the pool was barely getting to 14C most days. It became hot tub only season.

Last weekend, after a gorgeous sunny hike, Goose and Woo got it in their heads that they should try going for a swim. The water was a chilly 15C, but they went in multiple times for quick swims. They went back in the following day, and the day after. Then we had friends from home over, and their lils went in briefly. By this past weekend they were actually swimming happily. We knew the only solution was to pull out the solar covers and re-open the pool.

Monday morning brought the pool guy at his usual time. He walked into the yard and looked at the covers on the pool with a puzzled expression on his face. “The lils have been in every day for a week,” I said. “We knew we had to give them an extra degree or two with the covers.” He smiled and shook his head, saying “Your children are CRAZY.” Then he set to work on what he needed to do to officially open the pool for us. I am pretty sure we are the first pool he has opened this season.