New Car!

Ok, so I write on my blog about as well as I write in my regular journal. Oh well.

But, in big exciting news at our house, I am now FREE from the regular pain and suffering that I had to deal with with my van. We got a new car! (Car being a generic term...SUV, if you wanna be specific.)

We are now the proud new owners of a year old, white Honda Pilot, with just 4000 miles, and plenty of bells and whistles. Sun roof? Got it. DVD player? Got it. A regular plug like you have at home? Got it. (Wooo...I could blow dry my hair in there if I wanted!) Heated seat? Got it. Camera that shows out the back of your car when it's in reverse so you hopefully don't run over any little kids? Got it. I LOVE MY NEW VEHICLE!

I no longer have to worry about random things happening with my vehicle when I least expect it. The door locks all work, and the doors all seem to open smoothly, without you having to employ superhuman strength to open them. The lights don't randomly flash on and off, and the rear air has yet to turn itself on in some poltergeisty way. I haven't had any check engine lights or overdrive lights flashing on and off, it doesn't overheat, and when I turn a corner it sounds quiet, not like my kids moaning 'cause I've asked them to practice the piano. I am looking forward to NOT having to take it in to the shop. In a quick peruse of the auto folder in the filing cabinet, I counted 23 work orders documenting our MANY trips to the shop over the 9 years we had the van. I mean, really...23 times in 9 years? That's nearly 3 times a year! Ridiculous. Hate me if you must 'cause I've got a super new vehicle, but I am pretty sure I probably deserve it after putting up with the van for 9 years!

And, you ask, what is happening with the van? Well, currently Bradley is taking his turn in suffering through it's quirkiness. Ideally, we'll get rid of it and get something else, but doing anything with the van at this point is going to way of my blog postings: it's just not happening very quickly. I'm hoping maybe we'll trade it in on the government's "Cash for Clunkers" incentive: we could get double to triple it's value on the trade, and then they destroy it and no one ever has to deal with it again! Sounds like a win-win situation for all.

Why doesn't my blog get updated unless I post something?

Amazingly, I have discovered that if I don't post anything, my blog doesn't get updated! As much as I know that to be true, I found myself wanting to check my blog to see if there was some great post this past month (has it really been nearly a MONTH since I posted?!?!). But, alas, there was not, because I didn't write anything. In a future Jetsons-like time, maybe I'll be able to just plug into my brain and download my thoughts about what's been going on without having to sit down and type out a post. And maybe then I won't go so long between posts!

June brought GIRL'S CAMP. I spent a few days in Mantua, Utah at the Mantua Girl's Home. Sounds like some orphanage doesn't it? It's really just a house set in the mountains above Mantua where LDS girls can go for Girl's Camp. Some of the highlights of Girl's Camp for me included:

-My possessed van scared me to death by leaking antifreeze all over after I returned from a side trip to Logan. Since that time however, it has done nothing of the sort and seems to run fine. That's pretty typical of my van: do something strange and bizarre, then run fine afterwards. When I used to take it to the dealership I'd get the work order back with these words: "Cannot duplicate". Or in other words, your car may have done something strange, but it's not doing it now, so we can't really fix anything.

-We went on a hike and got HAILED on! As I had an umbrella with me on the hike, this wasn't really so horrible. The girls with no umbrella found the hike not quite as refreshing as little hail balls (well, say blueberry size) tend to hurt when they slap into your skin.

-We had a wonderful "spa day", with little tropical slushie drinks with umbrellas to sip while we did foot baths, oatmeal/honey facials and nail painting. The girls loved it.

-A great "sturdy foundation" activity where the girls learned all about the safety and peace of building on the sturdy foundation of the gospel.

All in all, it was a great few days up at girl's camp. I came home and promptly got sick, as did about a dozen or so of the others from camp! Obviously we much have gotten really close at camp! (And isn't that really what camp's all about?)

June also brought Jacob's 12th birthday! Happy Birthday, Jacob! And, with the 12th birthday came advancement from Primary into Young Men, and the Aaronic Priesthood. It's a combination of exciting and scary to have the kids growing up so fast! Jacob's 12th birthday was the night of a Young Men/Young Women combined Water Activity. We had a giant slip and slide, and some other fun water games, such as human battleship. In human battleship, two teams lie down on the grass in random spots on opposite sides of a tarp that is held between them (so they can't see the other team's positions). Then they launch water balloons over the tarp and try to hit each other. The kids loved it.

June ended, July came, and we had 4th of July fun with Craig's family. We went to Carolyn and Tony's and had a fun barbeque, then went to the Salt Lake Bee's baseball game and the fireworks afterwards. I have decided that I am not a fan of being so close to fireworks that cinders fall on you...we've done that twice now and I (and my eyes) much prefer watching them from farther away!


I've also been really, really spoiled this summer by having Melanie home nearly every weekend. Between all the mission farewells for her friends and holidays she's been coming home a lot. As much as we tease about how we can drive to Logan with our eyes shut, I must admit that the thought of fall semester (when she won't come home as often, I'm sure) makes me feel really sad.


All in all, however, life is good. Craig's work is running him ragged at this point in the game...between Michael Jackson's death and the people who want to make commmerative buttons for that and the baseball teams that want trading pins for their tournaments he's been really, really busy! But it's good, and we're thankful for the blessing of his company being prosperous.