Now we're cooking with gas! - Day 11 & 12

Day 11 and 12 are really just preparation days.

There is another crew coming in to start coping and laying the flagstone for our back porch, stairs and sundeck. (The outer deck surrounding the pool will be done later along with the fire pit area.) This crew will also begin construction on the outdoor kitchen. We ordered a new gas grill, side burner, storage compartments and a small fridge that will be built in at the corner of the back porch near the doors. Once the equipment arrives the tiling crew will custom build it into a counter area.

Also at this stage, we're required to "cure the gunite." Basically, for the next five days, three times a day, we water the gunite to strengthen it. Keith and Jim have been taking this in turns...and Bow has been supervising.

Tiling will begin after the weekend, but they came by to drop off the cement and sand early Saturday morning while Keith and Bow were watering down the gunite. The truck backed into our yard and the guys got out to start unloading the supplies. Bow immediately starting woofing up a storm and running toward the men. Keith said he's never seen 5 big guys jump into a truck so fast!

They didn't know Bow is just a big softie and more a watchdog than an attack dog, all they saw was 90-pounds of big dog closing in. Keith went over and tried to calm Bow down and assure the guys that he was perfectly harmless, but their limited English didn't seem to allow them to understand his encouragements. The crew leader had been here the afternoon before so he wasn't that afraid; he slowly climbed out of the truck. When Bow ran over to him, the guy was still a bit wary. Eventually, he realized that Bow just wanted some love and the guy pet him then threw a ball. Once the other guys saw our big lummox of a dog run happily off for a game of fetch did they finally get out of the truckbed.

So, now we're waiting for Monday and the return of the crew with the flagstone. Until then...