Pepper is back!

She made it through surgery and the "doctor" actually used the phrase, "I've never seen that before" when he was showing us and explaining the problem. I wouldn't call it a cheap fix but compared to what we originally thought the problem was, this was a whole lot cheaper.

Car update

Pepper is in "surgery" today getting a radiator transplant. We're awaiting a call from the car "doctor" to let us know if she pulled through her surgery. We'll let you know...

Car trouble

My little black Neon, affectionately known as "Pepper" since college, has been a bit ill lately. We've yet to determine if she's going to pull through or not. I noticed her acting weird as I pulled into the school parking lot for my first day on Friday. Fortunately, I was able to coast safely into a parking spot and ended up forgetting about her morning hiccup during the day, as I was trying to digest all of my new information. It wasn't until I got into the car to leave school around 4:00 that I realized that it was more than just a hiccup and I was actually very fortunate to have made it into the parking lot that morning. I had to floor the gas pedal to even get her to move a short distance. I called David to tell him I was having problems with the car and was glad that we skipped our pleasantries and day review in order to discuss the car right away because I no sooner told him my problem and his phone died. So I sat in the parking lot trusting that he would come to my rescue, hoping that he actually knew which elementary school I'd earned my new job in. Within 15 minutes my knight in blue Expedition arrived, having only stopped at one wrong school along the way. We ended up having to leave the car there and drove home to call our mechanic. He loosely diagnosed our problem with the dreaded T word (transmission), which he doesn't do, and we made calls around to get other opinions. We returned to the school parking lot yesterday to check the transmission fluid, only to find it empty. So today we picked up some more fluid and refilled it and were thrilled when the car was actually able to drive away from the parking spot. Unfortunately as David pulled away it looked like we'd just sacrificed a small animal because there was a pool of red transmission fluid on the ground below where the car had sat. We had to leave the car in the parking lot (AGAIN!) and now we're going to have it towed to a garage where they can hopefully repair whatever seems to be leaking profusely. I must admit, we've enjoyed these past 6 years without car payments, but I'm pretty sure that time is coming to an end very soon. It may be time to retire Pepper. She's served us well these past 10 years, but I'm not so sure how much longer she's going to make it.

The interview

Thanks for praying everyone. I feel good about my interview today. Whether I get the job or not, I'm just relieved that I at least left feeling good about it. It's a lot worse when you leave full of regrets; I've been there before. They're doing reference checks tomorrow and should have a decision made by the end of the week. I'll update when I know!

UPDATE: I got called today, exactly 24 hours after my interview and they offered me the job! Yeah!

Read on... new posts ahead!

Read ahead to hear (and see) all about our most recent vacation.

Also, please pray for my interview on Tuesday at 1:10 (central)! I am interviewing for a long term sub job teaching 1st grade for a maternity leave. It would be great if I could get my feet in the door of this school district. I'll post more when I know more! Thanks!

California/Arizona Vacation '09

We've just returned from a wonderfully relaxing and beautiful vacation out west to visit our good friends Wayne and Bev Whitney who are smart and move to southern California every winter. We had a fantastic time beginning and ending each day with a mountain-view dip in the hot tub. On Wednesday, they took us to The Living Desert. It was very cool and it would have been nice to spend a little more time there if we weren't all starving for the Rubios fish tacos we'd all promised ourselves. It was great to have time to play (cards, dominoes, golf) and just sit around and talk. The weather was a little cooler than we'd hoped (mid 60's), but sunny and beautiful all week (aside from Monday, our travel day.) Thank you again, Wayne and Bev for having us! We had a wonderful time!



2009-02-15 15:07

Palm Springs Aerial Tramway

On Thursday, we drove to Palm Springs to ride the Aerial Tramway. It was a 10 minute, 2 1/2 mile trip up Mount San Jacinto in a rotating tram car. Pretty spectacular views! There's a restaurant at the top but we were concerned that it might be on the pricey side so we decided to pack a "picnic" lunch. We knew that it would be cold and snowy up there, but we didn't realize that we wouldn't be able to "picnic" indoors. So we found a picnic table that wasn't buried in snow and had our picnic lunch.... in 27 degrees. Needless to say, we ate pretty quickly! Here are some pictures of our trip (unfortunately I think they're in there backwards...).

Joshua Tree National Park

We decided to stop at the Joshua Tree National Park on our way from Indio to Phoenix. We'd heard of the Joshua tree and finally had one identified for us while we were at the Living Desert. We had to drive a couple of miles into the park before we found our first Joshua tree and even then they were quite small. By the time we got to the actual welcome center we were able to locate some larger ones. Since admission was $15 and we really wanted to get back on the road to get to Phoenix before rush hour, we turned around and left. We'd seen our Joshua trees and taken a few pictures. We were guessing the rest was probably just more of the same. We were glad that we stopped for that brief detour. It wasn't long before we came upon a pretty bad accident scene involving a semi. Had we not stopped, who knows...

Ok, so I just looked up the Joshua Tree on Wikipedia, and it looks like the "Joshua Trees" we thought we'd found are not actually Joshua Trees. Apparently in the 2 1/2 days that passed between our trip to the Living Desert and the Joshua Tree National Park, we forgot what a Joshua Tree actually looked like. Apparently we should have paid the $15 and driven a little further!

Fun being Uncle David and Aunt Melissa

Living so far from all of our nieces and nephew, we don't often get the opportunity to be the fun aunt and uncle we wish we could be. We were thrilled that Mike and the kids were able to come meet up with us while we were in Phoenix. (We missed you, Jen! Hope you had fun at the wedding!) We had a blast going bowling followed by a few hours at Chuck E Cheese. Does it get any better than that? I don't have any bowling pictures because the lights were too dark, but here are a few pics from Chuck E Cheese's.

Fun weekend #2 (Superbowl)

Small groupies reunited two days later to enjoy the Superbowl together and eat more food! Jillayne, Amie, and I made a 3-D glasses run to Cub during the 2nd quarter so we could all enjoy the 3-D commercials together. (We also need them to watch "Chuck" tomorrow night).

Jimmy and Amie

Bryan and Emily

David and Becca

Ryan and Jen

Jillayne and Trina

David and Melissa

Scott and Kerri

Jason and Trina

Fun weekend #1

You may have heard us joke about having the best small group ever, but it really is true. In our last post you read about us feeding starving children. This weekend was more about just feeding ourselves and having fun enjoying each other's company. On Friday night we all gathered at our place for our post-holiday holiday dinner. The food was delicious and we had a lot of fun afterward watching stupid Youtube videos on the Apple TV and playing Moods and Catchphrase. We have such a great time when we're together.