Weekend Wrap-Up

Sunday at work again, woohoo. At least today, it's only a six-hour shift, and I'll be out of here at 2pm. Last weekend I was covering my shift plus someone else's.

While I'm sitting here, I thought I'd hit the highlights of the weekend and post some pictures. The biggest news is that Friday we got Danni a car. Yes, I know she doesn't have her license yet, but she is 16 and she'll be getting it soon. She's also looking for a job, and she's going to help pay for the car when she gets a job. I mean, the car is paid for, but she will be making small payments to us. Ok, in reality she will be making small payments to Mimi and Grandad, who loaned us the money (at 0% interest, thanks Mom and Dad!) to buy the car. Whew.

The nice thing about those loans from Mimi and Grandad is that there's not a real strict repayment schedule. We've got some stuff up on eBay right now that should cover at least half of it.

Anyway, we found a 1993 Dodge Intrepid on Craig's List for $1000. It only has 128,000 miles on it, and I say only because my van has half that many miles on it, and it's only 3 years old! So I'm thinking for a 15 year-old car, that's not too shabby. It's in really good shape, and just needed some minor work. Dad and Uncle Ken (who has owned only Dodge vehicles, God Bless America, and is somewhat of an expert on them) spent the day working on it yesterday. What they did sounded like this to me: Blah blah gasket cover blah blah small leak blah blah blah brake pads, yada yada oil change blah blah blah blah freon charge. I'm not too car savvy, obviously. We also bought her a stereo for the car, because at some point the stereo was stolen out of this car. We knew that before we bought it, though.

We have a $300 budget for fixing the car up, and we're still under that. Uncle Ken is coming back over today to install the stereo and run an electronic diagnostic. (?) It was awfully nice of Steve's sister to marry an electrician/mechanic who likes to do things like this, wasn't it? We just buy him lunch and call it good. The car is white with a light gray interior. No pictures yet, but soon, I'm sure. I'm going to wait until it's all spiffied up and clean, and then take a picture of my daughter next to her lovely new instrument of death car. I'm going to the DMV to register it tomorrow. Hopefully I can get that done in the three-hour window that Kylie is in preschool in the morning. Am I being overly optimistic that I can do that in under three hours? I'll probably want to take a book along.

A wonderful co-worker of mine pointed out to me that the word "intrepid" means: "Characterized by resolute fearlessness, fortitude, and endurance." Fabulous. Just what a brand new driver needs is resolute fearlessness. Thanks, buddy.

On Saturday, while Dad and Uncle Ken were working on the car, I took my littlest punk (yeah, I totally stole that from Pioneer Woman) to her roller-skating class. When we got her the roller blades for Christmas, I signed her up for some skating classes at a place that is literally right across the street from our neighborhood. $20 for four lessons, not bad, right? Well, I signed up for the four lessons back in January. They just give you a punch card, and mark it off each time you go. Yesterday we just took the fourth lesson, so obviously we didn't quite make it every week. Actually, it was more like once a month. That's ok, because she's really getting the hang of it now. She's skating more than she's falling, so I think that's good. I took some pictures yesterday:



Before you skate, you have to stretch. As you can see, this is an all-ages beginners class. The people in the class range from about 3 years old to adults. Watching adults try to learn to skate is kind of...um... funny. Is that mean?



See, she's totally getting it! Well, all except that part about looking up and not looking at your feet.



Lots of concentration here...I hope that's what it is, anyway.



Clearly, this picture is blurry because of the velocity at which she is moving. It has nothing to do with my substandard photography equipment or my skills as a photographer. No, she was just going really fast.



After the lesson is over, they all get to go out to the middle of the skating floor and do the Hokey Pokey. On skates.

Here we go...
"You put your left elbow in, you put your left elbow out,
You put your left elbow in, and you shake it all about,
You do the Hokey Pokey and you turn yourself around..."



Oops...still gotta work on that turning around thing...





"That's what it's all about!"