August Roundup

August is a transitional month for us. We spent the first half having fun in North Carolina and Dallas, and then the second half starting school and putting our routine back together. Here are a few mother moments from our month:

We got back from our summer travels to a few problems at home. Our AC had gone out amd the house could barely stay below 80 degrees, the battery on Dave's car had corroded and needed replacing, one of our garage doors had a fried circuit board, and our internet cable had been severed - yikes! I guess that's what happens when you go on vacation and neglect real life for a month.

Sophie lost her other top tooth! She has such a cute smile and was excited to be able to drink a smoothie without opening her mouth.

Our pools close the second week of August, even though it's still 90-100 degrees here until the end of September. Since we can't swim, we often hit the splash pad to beat the heat. 

Charlie loves to say "CHEESE!" and pose for the camera. He has the cutest little smile. 

I brought Charlie into the front seat with me to ride through the carwash because it scares him. While he didn't cry sitting with me, he was still slightly terrified!

Family bowling night at WT! I almost rolled a turkey on the last frame to beat out Dave.

Chalk fun at the library

These two hardly ever get along (Davey loves to push Charlie around and take everything away from him) but every now and then they have sweet moments together. 

August 2019 Video Clips

Hooray for the kindness of strangers!

On Friday morning I put Sophie in the car and we started our drive down to Orem for work. We entered the construction zone at the point of the mountain, and as we drove up the hill, I suddenly saw an object about the size of a large can bouncing around in the road.  I was headed straight for us, but I had cars to my right, left, and right behind me so braking or swerving to avoid it was not an option. We made impact and my dashboard immediately started blinking a tire pressure warning.

I looked for a place to pull over, but there is no shoulder throughout the construction zone so we had to keep going. There are a few emergency pull over spaces, but every one we passed already had a car in it (other victims?) so I was just praying we could make it to the exit. We were able to exit and I pulled over on a side street to inspect the damage.

Completely flat - no bueno

I called Dave, who was out of town, to see if he could find me some help but we couldn't think of anyone who could change a tire and would be available in the middle of the day. I got the spare tire and the jack out of the trunk and was sitting on the side of the road, when someone pulled over to help. He was on his way into work, and got down on the wet ground in his uniform and put on the spare for us. I was so grateful for his help and don't know what we would have done otherwise! I tried to pay him, but he wouldn't accept my money and said that was how his mom had raised him. 

My lifesaver!

We drove on our spare to the Costco tire center and got there right as they were opening. The mechanic said the side wall of our tire was damaged beyond repair, and that we would need a replacement. The entire process took a couple hours, but there are worse places to be stuck than Costco. Sophie and I did lots of walking around and enjoyed a frozen yogurt while we waited. Once the car was fixed, I called work to tell them we were on our way again and they told me to go home (thank you Kris!) and I was more than happy to comply. What a way to start a weekend!

One in a Million

We were not hit by lightening (thank goodness), nor did we win a big prize (dang!), but we were on the receiving end of gift card fraud, not once, but twice! Aren't we lucky?

It all started when I got a gift card to Macy's from my work in July 2010 before moving to Utah...

Timeline of Events:

November 2010 - Dave and I went shopping at Macy's. When I tried to use the gift card I was told the balance was $0.00. I said that wasn't possible because we had never used the card. The store told me to call customer service. Customer service told me the card had recently been used by someone in California. I told them that I was in UT and those purchases weren't made by me. Since I still had the receipt to prove ownership of the card, Macy's sent me a replacement card.

December 2010 - Replacement card with a different 18-digit number arrived loaded with loaded $150 and all was well... or so I thought...

December 2011 - I was at Macy's picking up a suit for my brother. While there I decided to do a little shopping. When I tried to use the replacement gift card sent to me earlier, I was told the balance was $0.00. So I called customer service again and learned that the card had been used a few weeks ago in California, running the balance down to $0.00. I explained my story, that this exact same thing had happened the year before. At first they were skeptical and called in the manager to look at my case, but since I still had the original card & receipt, and the replacement card, I was able to prove I was telling the truth.

So somewhere in California someone has $300.00 worth of Macy's merchandise, BUT  I should have my third, and hopefully final, gift card soon. And this time, I'm going to spend the money before someone else does. Oh the magic of Macy's!

Bad luck

The other day I broke a mirror and earned myself seven years of bad luck. But it was a small mirror, and I tried really, really hard to catch it before it hit the floor so I am hoping for a reduced sentence...

Life without TV

A couple weeks ago our TV starting acting strange. It would randomly turn off, and then turn back on a few seconds later - not desirable, but we could live with it. Then it started happening every 30 seconds. Now we were beyond our tolerance limit and decided to call a repair man.

They came and replaced a part, after which our TV worked for one day and then died; Nothing but black screen.

It took us a week to get a repair guy back to our house (scheduling is a beast when you're both gone all day). After messing with the TV for a few minutes, our repair guy determined that it needed to be taken back to the shop for further investigation.

And so we have been without for almost two weeks now - a real hardship, I know. I don't think I realized how much the TV was on until it wasn't:

No Wii
No movies from our collection
No movies from Redbox
No MoTab Sunday morning
No Planet Earth Sunday evening
No TLC while I iron
No Brady Bunch while I make dinner
No Law & Order re-runs while we eat dinner
No Bones on Thursdays
No Fringe on Fridays
No Food Network at night
No sports - which prompted us to buy tickets from a scalper to the BYU vs Utah game since they stopped taking All sports passes and we had no TV to watch from home

Instead we have been playing games, getting ahead with homework, cleaning out the house, organizing photos, reading, listening to music, going to bed on time, or even EARLY.

So it hasn't been all that bad. But I will be glad when it comes back :)

Be careful what you wish for

This morning I was thinking to myself that it had been awhile since I posted anything on the blog. But nothing that eventful has happened to either of us in the past few weeks...

We've worked, we've played. We've been to a couple Mariner games. I've been cleaning out our house, and Dave has been jogging. We watched it hail like the world was ending one day, and then basked in the sun the next. We're catching up on the final season of Lost (hooray for Hulu). We saw the new Iron Man movie and now I want one of these. They are mesmerizing.

Nothing was really worthy of its own post though... until today when something eventful did happen.

Our car died on 405 while Dave was driving to a customer meeting (so glad it was Dave driving and not me). Luckily he was able to coast to the side of the freeway and then get the car to work long enough to reach an off ramp. He then enlisted the help of a bystander to push it somewhere safe. As of the latest update, he was riding in a tow truck en route to the dealership. I am really hoping this is a quick, cheap fix instead of a $$$$ repair.

So much for exciting - I'm ready to go back to our boring life :)