Saturday, July 1, 2006

July update

"Good morning this is Sydney. How may I help you."
New shelves in the closet, thanks to an inheritance of particle board from Grandpa Bert's will.

6/23/06 The moment you've all been waiting for has finally come: I have to eat my words. We listed my sweet awesome Mountaineer in the Review Journal. I'm selling it. I can't afford the stinkin' gas. But incase any of you could, here's a sneak peek at what the rest of Las Vegas will be seeing early Saturday morning:
2002 Mercury Mountaineer, V6, All wheel drive, power everything, separate AC for passenger/driver, 6 disc in dash CD changer, rear AC, 3 row bench seat for 7 passenger seating, AC and Radio controls on steering wheel, leather, dual power and heated seats, separate lifting glass and rear door, class II tow package, new tires, roof racks, fog lights, alloy wheels, a horn that plays "la cucaracha," memory seat, keyless entry remote and on door, auto dimming rear view mirror, running boards...okay maybe it doesn't really have the cucaracha horn...
We are looking at some cars similar to the one we've already got: bigger size car with enough power to pull a trailer. My two top picks are Impala and Monte Carlo. We would like to spend around $7k, but could go all the way up to $9k. I would probably sell the house off before selling the banshee...back when I was single. Now-a-days, the banshee has a lower priority than I ever thought it would have.
This morning when I got out of the shower, I was still in the bathroom getting ready. Like most mornings, Sydney and Keresa woke up while I was in there, so they were in the bedroom calling me. I heard Sydney saying, "Dad, Dad, Dad...Muh-Kay, Muh-Kay... " Keresa said she started that on her own. It sounded so un-baby-like.
Thanks to Dad donating a short stack of particle board to the cause, we have built a 3-level shoe shelf in our master bedroom closet, and a more serious 5-level shelf in our hall closet. And, in building those, it gave me some good ideas for my lesson this Sunday about preparing for the Melchizedek Priesthood. I was able to talk about charging the battery on the drill, preparing all the boards to the right measurements and cuts, getting nails and screws and glue, etc. I was able to convert those temporal things for some spiritual aspects of preparing our boys for their next step. It was a good lesson.
Keresa is days away from the third trimester, and reaching the end of her feel-good days. She has started feeling light-headed and a little sick if she doesn't keep cool. So she invites over her little bros and sisters to swim throughout the week. It is giving her and Sydney a great tan!
Keresa had a doctor's appointment yesterday morning. She told the doc we are scheduled to tour the hospital that he likes, to make sure we like it too. He said, "Well is it getting that close to the date? Let's schedule you then." So she is scheduled for live birth, September 28, at 7:30 am.
I picked up a new DVD online that Mom sure thought was neat - it's a new compilation of Gilad's TV shows put together for a total body workout that is 70 minutes long. It's fun because the guy is such a character. I recognize some of the parts of the movie as segments from Mom's old work-out video.
Our office took us to a night on the town. We started at the steak house in Treasure Island, which was good. But things really got exciting afterward when we saw the show Mystere. It was a lot of fun and very entertaining. It is like a foreign circus set in a jungle. The characters are not people, but not animal, just like some kind of creatures. They do a lot of trapeze stuff, jumping really high on trampolines and doing flips, etc. It was really fun. We saw Blue Man Group in March, and we were trying to decide which was more entertaining. Keresa thought if you are a music/rhythm and technology person, Blue Man may tip the scales a bit, but any old person can enjoy Mystere.
When we got our Mountaineer in December, we noticed right away it had a problem where the brake lights would stay on. It was as if someone was still sitting in there holding down the brake pedal, so many times I would come out in the morning and the battery had gone dead, or after work, or after school at night, etc. We priced fixing it with the dealership and they assured us it would be 3 or 4 hundred dollars, so we said bag that. Instead of fixing it, we have just been reaching down and un-plugging the brake lights cable, so just adding another step to getting out of the car. Now that we are selling it, we decided to fix that problem for the next person. So we hesitantly dropped it off at our regular mechanic. He let us know after only 4 or 5 hours that he had fixed the problem, and the total bill would be 80 bucks! He said this is a common problem among this year of truck, and there is a recall switch that he purchased for $15 and installed it in only an hour. Word to the wise: fix the problems as they come instead of putting them off, and NEVER believe the dealership for an estimate.
With love, mk kgw srw