Oh, for the love of the hot tub!!

One of our favorite finds on Craigslist since moving here is our softub hot tub (click on the title of this post to go to their website)!! My sweet husband insisted that we buy it for me to labor in for our home birth. Aww...what a guy! Our lives were a bit too crazy and hectic, though, with remodeling, moving in, remodeling, taking care of the kids, remodeling, life, job, remodeling, etc....and we never found the hot tub a "home". So, alas, I did not get to labor in it. Then I regretted buying it, as it sat in our garage, just hang'n out all by itself. The boys used to have their own rooms downstairs. We realized after a few months of this, that it was just not working out very well. There was WAAAY too much late night "partying" with giggles that could be heard all the way upstairs. And there was WAAAY too much worrying about their safety all the way down there by their worry-wart mother (geez...the "wart" part is so not very flattering....). We decided to move them upstairs to Fiona's room and move Fiona in with Haven and Scarlett. We devised really cool ways of putting their bunk beds together (see the previous photos I just took...ignore the messy rooms!) What does this have to do with the now beloved hot tub? Well, Viola!! We now had two available rooms downstairs!! We made one room the pet/lego/knex room...and the other room I painted a lovely sage green, Dave built a shelf for the t.v., we moved in the treadmill and recumbent bike and punching bag...and still had room left over for the hot tub!! WOOHOO!! It is a 1-2 person, so small...but oh so nice. Especially on these chilly winter nights when I would usually take a hot bath before bed. We don't have a bath tub in our master bath (another reason why this is not our "keeper" house, but more of a flip) so now I can just go down to the hot tub and read or watch a show and get all toasty warm and relaxed!! Okay, so it is like 2 feet away from the treadmill which I *should* have used tonight to get all toasty warm......but....yeah....I got in the hot tub instead! :) The kids love to take turns in it too. We are finding it tricky to get the water right as far as chemicals and stuff...but we figure we can always just drain it and refill it as needed since it takes the same amount of water to fill as about 2-3 bathtubs full (which I would use on average a week during the winter if I had a tub to soak in....). We are planning on putting it out on the soon-to-be-built deck in the back yard in the spring. We are also keeping a sharp eye out on Craigslist for any more like it....hopefully a bigger one!! I highly recomend them!! And who knows....maybe in a few years I will labor in it and it will be able to full fill it's intended purpose. :)