I ended up building up a sand pad on where my pool sits. The sand pad measures 17' round. My backyard had a 9 1/2" drop from the top of the pool would sit to the bottom of the pool. I used the green metal landscape edging around the sand, and then shoveled and shoveled and then I shoveled some more..
Once I had enough sand, (4 yards of bank sand was used), I leveled it with rakes and a long 2x4 piece, And then tamped it all down. Filled in the dips and craters with more sand and tamped all that down again! Before the pool was installed on the pad, i layed down the provided tarp. Then installed the pool on top of all of this. After everything was said and done, I had about 6" between the pool and the edging. I tucked the excess tarp back under the pool. And then for landscaping effect, I layed those white landscaping rocks, over the tarp/gap. I'll post some pics tomorrow or so, so that people can get a visual
description of what I did.