The bulbs are sprouting, the buds on the trees are just starting to open, the grass is looking a tad bit green, birds are coming back, and it is still generally in the 50s. It is time to think about the garden, fertilizing, landscaping, and that chicken coop I've been wanting to build. Of course figuring out the budget for it, hosting, and an adoption trip is another story.
Today is Melissa's first day at work for 3months. I must say she's been living it up sleeping in, facebooking, etc... but no one is happier for her to be going back to work than she is. I do have the house to myself again when I'm working which is nice too :) Melissa's work was very generous in letting her be gone... they are a small company so they don't have to do FMLA but they have a policy they updated to include adoption for her which is close. The one kicker is that she had to decide up front exactly how much to take so with all the uncertainties she had no choice to pick the full 12wks. She would have preferred to have headed back 2-3wks ago... and of course since it was contiguous time there wasn't an option to come back for the wait and work a week.
So this is generally a blog about Dennis... this weekend Sam and Ashley had "assignments" that they were procrastinating on so they didn't get to do much outside church and a party we had at our house Saturday evening. On Saturday we went to a car dealer to look at a van... which of course turned in a trip to McD's. The dealer was lame, won't go there again, but Dennis and Amanda did great.
On Sunday we had church, tried to call Snezhana again (no go, phone off, though we did hear she was very friendly and happy with a friend of ours on Saturday), and then Dennis and Amanda headed with me to the other car dealer. First was a great surprise that the vehicle actually did have cruise control which everyone said it did not and was my one negative about it. The dealer didn't jerk me around, gave me a good deal, so a few hours later we had a new car. Dennis did have a little I'm angry pout session. I asked him if he wanted to bring his DSi into the dealership but he repeatedly said no so we left it. After his balloon pop'd he wanted his DSi which of course we weren't going to do so at that point he pout'd until we left an hour or so later. Meanwhile the loan officer has a 17mo girl and 2 kids on the way... Amanda decided he was great fun along with his motorcycle gear.
Afterward we decided to go with the family in the new car to a new Mexican restaurant we really like. The kids hadn't had fried ice cream before and theirs was REALLY good.
So we have a big ole 2009 Ford E-350 12 passenger van that gets 13mpg... the kids love it. Dennis came in excited about the BBIIIIGGG car. With 4 kids that is almost a bench each. We had to replace the mini-van which was dying and with hosting 2 teenagers this summer and a possible chaperone that exceeded any possibility of fitting everyone in one care. Last summer when it was just us and Dennis/Snezhana we could squeeze into the mini-van and when we had someone else we just had to take 2 cars everywhere. Anyways, it'll be nice and when it is just the 6 of us I'll probably remove the back seat for the cargo space. Though this means that Melissa is driving my RX-8 to work (RIP)... which means we will probably break even gas wise over all since the RX-8 got better gas mileage than the mini-van and the van won't get driven as much.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteLooks awesome! Hope it satisfies all your needs!
ReplyDelete