Taken For a Ride

Dear Future Self,

Do you remember, just before James was born, the time you needed to buy another car? Things had been going well with just one, but starting in August, your family needed another car to make their various schedules work.

Brian did lots of looking online to find a beater that would get him to and from UVU. We went up to Logan to take a look at a BMW that sounded perfect...

And,
We got taken for a ride.

I'd still like to think that the nice man who sold us was not trying to unload a lemon, but only he knows. After the power-steering belt and then alternator belt popped off, the timing belt gave up too. Bye bye car.

Some tears, some blood, some what ifs. On the whole, not a horrible thing, but not an experience we would like to repeat.

How has it been since then? Have we had more of these type of experiences? Did we learn our lesson? Or, do we have more regrets like the tool chest of pneumatic tools we passed on?

I hope we are wiser!

love,
Current Self



P.S. Silver Linings to remember

• beautiful double rainbow while waiting for the tow truck in Bountiful
• visit with friends in Logan
• something to laugh about...someday soon
• lots of time to talk while working on the car

Lilly-Centric

As a prize for putting up with photos of us on vacation for a solid month and a half, here are more photos of us on vacation!  Or rather, here are a bunch of photos of Lilly on our vacation. I managed to get photos of her at various temples, but probably not all of them. I don't think. So this could be a short post, or not. I don't know.

I am in the process of adding posts to Lilly's blog, and wanted more photos of her than of the temple, so I thought I would share them with you guys as well.

Bismark N.D.

St Paul MN

Winter Quarters NB

Kansas City MO

Carthage Il

Detroit MI

Palmyra NY

Washington DC

Raleigh NC

Columbia SC

Atlanta GA

Birmingham AL

Baton Rouge LA

Dallas TX

Lubbock TX

Albuquerque NM

Well there you go.  A bunch of pictures and some of them even have artistic content. And if you are reading this, you actually bore with me through a boring Vacation Post. YEAH! All Photos and no actual content, but hey that's more than Lilly will remember, right?

Family Pictures

Last day for the Barlow gathering, so we did family pictures yesterday evening. The same focus issues from the redwoods applied here, unfortunately. Still not sure what the issue is.

Our Little "Sweetheart" making her cousin cry. She had already made the one on the other side mad.

Standing Tall

Yesterday consisted of us failing to remember to pack lunch, and failing to remember to get gas, and failing to remember to pack mosquito repellent.

We coasted into Big Basin Valley about 930 yesterday with what turned out to be just enough gas in the tank to coast 10 miles back out to a gas station with .036 gallons to spare. I REALLY need to remember to check the gauge more than once a week, even when we are sticking to in town driving. Redwoods were nice though.

They don't look so tall up close, other than they are just really tall. Lemme try that again: Up close they look tall, but once they are over a certain height, all trees look about the same from the ground. when it finally clicks that they are about the same height as the Statue of Liberty, which you just saw 3 weeks ago, then you really start to get a feel for the scope of the thing.

Also, just a quick note: Something is wrong with my camera, as everything has been coming out fuzzy for the last 48 hours. I have not solved this issue yet, so if anything looks fuzzy, that's why.