Christmas Eve

The boys (all three of them) had a ball on Christmas eve. We made cookies, for Santa, and everyone got to open one present, some new PJ's. We read the story of Christ's birth from the scriptures, and the boys acted it out with the Little People nativity set. We also sang Christmas songs, and Sam gave the boys airplane rides - one of their favorite Daddy activities. Harrison was sure to tell us to go to bed soon so that Santa could come to our house. The boys were in bed by 7:30, and mom and dad did follow just a few hours later.

Gingerbread House

Last night we finally got around to doing a gingerbread house. I had been telling the boys that we would do one for a while now, but on Monday I was at Trader Joe's and picked up a cute kit. I just didn't realize I had to make my own icing, so we had to wait until Tuesday night to put it together.
The kit came with a cute little set of characters - I think they are suppose to be Hansel, Grettle and the evil witch, but they were cute nonetheless. I controlled the icing, but the boys determined where each blob should go, and placed all the candy pieces.
Harrison seemed most proud of his pretzel fence in the front. We managed to get through it with only taking a few tastes of the icing, but the boys wanted to stare at it forever - they both ran out to get one last good look before bed time, and it was the first thing they asked to see in the morning.

Puddle Jumping

Today San Diego had a much needed rainfall. I believe it's what they call a "winter storm" 'round these parts. But to me, it was just a good rainy day. Since we don't get rain very often, it's quite a novelty. After we walked Harrison across the yard to go to preschool, I let Noah play in the rain. I bought a rain coat this summer off a clearance rack, and I guess this was my way of justifying my purchase. But Noah loved it. He ran from puddle to puddle jumping, kicking and laughing. At times there was a pretty good down-pour - reminiscent of the flash floods we used to get back in Virginia. This is about as close to playing in the snow as we get here in La Jolla, so when we came in, we warmed up with some hot chocolate.

Our New Van

As Sam mentioned, we bought a new Van. A 2004 Honda Odyssey to be exact. And while we did do pretty extensive research into buying it, I think that there was some luck in our amazing find as well. We ended up paying less than the trade-in value for it! I'm pretty sure we could flip it and make a handsome profit if we wanted, but I think we'll keep it. I keep checking out the window to look and see if it's still there. I'm not sure if I'm paranoid after our car theft, or if I'm checking if last night was a dream... One nice thing is the probability of theft is much decreased. The keys have a microchip in them, so it wont start unless the key is in the ignition. I'm not sure who is more excited about this van - Sam and I or the boys. They love the dual power sliding doors that they can easily open and shut themselves, I love that they can't slam shut. They love that they each get their own captain's chair, and I love that they can't hit each other while we're in the car. They love that they have their own vents for a/c or heat now, and I love that they can't roll down their own windows. She's paid for (well, with a loan that is) insured, and I've already read most of the owner's manual (yes, I'm a nerd), so I guess the next step is naming her. Ah, decisions decisions....

Lessons on buying a car

Mollie and I bought a car!

Here's my attempt to chronicle what we learned. We spent a lot of time researching and it really paid off.

1. Decide what car you want. Never buy a car without making this decision first. Get as narrow a scope as possible; try for make, model and year. Mollie and I knew that we wanted a minivan, and reliability was high on our list. So we went to Consumer Reports and figured out that the Honda Odyssey was the most reliable. So we ruled out everything else. Then we looked for the model type/year. Consumer reports showed us that there is great variability in the same car between different years. The Odyssey generation 1998- 2004 got progressively better with 2003 and 2004 being much much better than other years. Then things got worse again in 2005, when there was a total remake. This is generally true. Models improve within a generation; the first year of a remake often has substantial deficiencies. So we settled on a 2003 or 2004 Honda Odyssey.

If you can't make this clean of a decision, go to a dealer and say that you want to drive several cars and decide on a model. Be firm that you will not buy anything today, but just want to decide on a model.

With this decision made, we could effectively target the used car market. We searched all the standard online places: autotrader, craigslist, ebay, ... and found at least 50 2003/2004 Odysseys. We made a spreadsheet of price, mileage and options/gadgets.

2. Get the facts: carfax. We found listings with salvage titles, forged odometers, etc. In the same vein, you should get a mechanic to check out any car you are seriously considering. This will cost only $100, but could reveal problems (the transmission is about to die, the break pads are almost gone, etc.).

3. Never buy the first car you test. This is related to the "cracker principle" that I will expand on another day, but you can't buy without having some points of comparison. We looked at 5 or 6 and test-drove another 3. With each one we got a better idea of what we wanted. For us: we didn't care about the interior leather/cloth (not a surprise); we didn't care about the DVD if it costs an extra grand; we wanted less miles as opposed to newer; color was not terribly important.

4. Talk about the car you want, not the price. Dealers always ask, "What's your price? What do you want to spend?" Your answer must be "I want a 2004 Honda Odyssey EX. Bring me that car." Stay with the car-centric view. You know what you want. Demand to see it. When the time comes for prices (after you've found the car you want to buy), you will know the fair price by checking your spreadsheet.

5. When you're ready to buy, go at the end of the month. Dealers are under monthly quotas, and they throw crazy deals at the end of the month.

6. When you talk about price, talk about price! not financing. Financing is a great way for the dealer to hide the true cost. They drag it out for 6-7 years so that the payments are low. Sometimes they forget to include tax in the cost due at signing. There are lots of ways to swindle you. The best thing to do is to come in with financing secured through your bank. Then you only allow conversation on the actual price of sale. You will have to steer the conversation and perhaps repeatedly so. A good friend of ours encouraged us to do this through email. It worked great. You just say, "saw your ad. I'm interested. I have financing already. What's the final cost. Taxes, fees, everything." Then in an email they give you back a price that you compare to the spreadsheet. It's great. If they don't give you a clear answer, that should be a hint.

7. Always take a moment alone to think. We got close to buying 2 cars. But with each we went away from the dealer to think, talk, compare, pray.

With that, I will reveal the best/worst dealer we dealt with.
Worst: some jerk of a manager at Pacific Honda.
We went there with a print out of a 2004 Honda Odyssey for 17K. They brought us a 2006 for 23K and said they were "looking" for the one in the ad. Then the salesman left and the manager/swindler came in. He tried to get us to buy it immediately. We said, "We just had our car stolen. So we ..." I was going to finish with "we don't have the money from our insurance company yet so we can't buy anything today." But before I could finish, he cut in with,

Jerk: I don't care about your car.
Me: What?
Jerk: I don't care about your car. I don't care about your problems. You don't care about mine. Are you going to buy the car? It's an amazing car. It has low mileage and perfect condition. I screen all my cars, it's perfect. Are you going to buy it? What do you want to spend? What's your price range? ...
Me: good bye

Best: Alpha Auto in Fallbrook
By this time, we had really narrowed in what we wanted. This car was the right year and had really low mileage. We emailed for an offer and got a great deal. We drove up there, which was over an hour away. The guy (Steve) was incredibly polite. He let us test drive it on our own, and it seemed great. We decided to go to Carl's Jr. and mull it over a burger. He suggested we take the car with us as an extension of the test drive. So nice and trusting. It was such a good deal compared with what we had already seen. So we bought it.

Sleeping Arrangments

A few nights ago, the boys were a little rowdy before going to bed - not unusual in our home as of late. But the scene in their room the next morning was more unusual. Noah had emptied the ENTIRE dresser in their closet, and put all of the clothes on his bed. I guess he slept in the pile of clothes all night.

We are still missing most of the socks, but other than that, I guess not too much harm done.

A Very Happy Thanksgiving

Our feast turned out to be a very happy Thanksgiving. It was a great day we spent all together enjoying food and each others company. Harrison had helped me on Wednesday to get everything prepped and the pies made, so Thanksgiving morning was amazingly un-hectic. I just threw the turkey in the oven first thing in the morning, took a cycling class at the gym, came home, took the turkey out, and heated everything through. We ate at 11:30 AM - I know, kinda of crazy. But Harrison and Noah are usually much better company at lunch than they are at dinner, and since we didn't have any guests to please, we did what works best for our family. Sam and the boys made name place cards while I finished the meal - yes that's what those brown hands are on the plates. And no, they don't actually have a name written on them, but the boys had a great time making them. The boys were really good about trying everything. Harrison even had mashed potatoes (which for some unknown reason, he detests) because he had helped make them. The pies were by far the boys favorite. We had pie around 3 when Noah woke up, and the boys literally licked their plates clean. We made a list of things we were Thankful for this year, so here it is:

• Mommy & Daddy (ahhhhh)
• Heavenly Father
• Soda
• Turkey
• Mashed potatoes
• peas
• chocolate pie
• Mollie
• Noah & Harrison
• Scriptures
• Friends
• praying
• Heavenly Father's Son (Jesus)
• Scoop (Bob the builder's helpful excavator, who helped shovel food into Noah's mouth during dinner)
• Talking to Grandma
• Chocolate

2007 Portraits

Each year I like to get portraits done of the boys. Noah's at the hardest age for pictures - wont sit still, and wont smile on command - Harrison on the other hand, if he's in the right mood, can be quite a ham for the camera. We managed to get some cute shots.

Price of a Feast

I finally got around to planning our Thanksgiving meal. I have almost all the shopping done, and I found some pretty good deals this year. I thought it would be interesting to see what the price of our little family's feast was this year:

Turkey
1 Butterball Turkey (13 lbs): $3.58 (that's total, not per pound...)
Stuffing
1lb Sage Sausage: $2.50
Celery: $0.77
Onions: $0.61
Gravy
2 cans Chicken Broth: $0.80
Mashed Potatoes
5 lbs of Potatoes: $0.49
8 oz Cream Cheese: FREE
Sour Cream: $1.50
Rolls
36 Rhodes Rolls: $2.59
Sides
Petite Peas: $1.00
TJ's Cranberry Relish: $2.99
Pies
1 prepared chocolate pie crust(I'm cheating a little this time): $0.90
more cream cheese: FREE!!!
1 bunch of bananas: $0.95
1 jar of hot fudge: $2.00
Whipping Cream: $1.79
Whipped Topping: $0.90
1 can Sweet & Condensed Milk: $1.39

TOTAL: $24.76

There are some ingredients omitted above, but they are things I already have on hand (flour, sugar, salt, spices, homemade bread (for the stuffing), butter, peanut butter). But I think even if I counted their cost, I'm making Thanksgiving dinner for under $30, and we'll have leftovers for FOREVER! Sometimes it pays to watch the grocery store ads and clip coupons! I also calculated the calories for all the recipes that I'm planning on making and there will be over 23000 calories on our table... Perhaps we should have invited some guests???

A bad fit

Sam, being the wonderful husband that he is, is often helpful in getting the boys ready in the morning. In fact, he gets them dressed more often than I do. But, sometimes, when he's extra helpful the day before in putting laundry away, we can come out with a funny picture. The other day I noticed Harrison had on some funny looking pants. I didn't think he owned any capris. On closer inspection they were Noah's pants. Everyone had a good laugh.

Bling Bling is Dead

At least to me she is. Someone else may be joy riding in her as we speak. Or perhaps they are dissecting her for her well sought after black market parts. In 2005 the 2nd most stolen car was a 1995 Honda Civic - so I guess it only makes sense that our 1998 Honda Civic would be in high demand as we approach 2008.

So let me back up a little bit. This morning started out like any other normal morning. We got up, had breakfast together as a family, read scriptures, said family prayer, and then Sam walked us out the door at 7:45 to make our 8:00 appointment at the YMCA playcare. As we walked towards the parking lot I didn't immediately see our car, which was strange to me, because we usually have the spot closest to our apartment, but I didn't think too much of it. I figured I must have forgotten where I parked. But as we entered the parking lot it became evident that the car was no where in sight. I immediately thought we must have gone somewhere else last night and parked further down. Sill, no car in the whole lot. It didn't seem real. That was my car. I had the keys in my pocket. I had locked it the day before when I got home from the grocery store. How could it possibly be gone? Who steals a car with 2 car seats parked in the graduate student apartment complex? Why would they want my 10 year old car anyway? For the next hour, as we called the police and insurance company, it still didn't seem real. I even checked a near-by lot that we never park in - amnesia seemed more likely than having my car stolen. It was just 2 days ago that I was contemplating what would be the fate of my trusty bling-bling. We are hoping to graduate by the end of the summer, and we were planning on purchasing a new vehicle (mini-van?) when Sam got his first job. I was just thinking what we might do with the Honda (bling-bling as she is affectionately known) - figuring we would keep her, and maybe even she would be the car that Harrison would first learn to drive. To give you a little background on why I might think this way - my family owned a 1971 Buick Station Wagon and a 1971 Ford Mustang until 1994 or so. And my Honda was surely much more reliable than those American made cars. It only made sense. And in the mean time, it would probably make a great commuter car for Sam. Low MPG, and great reliability. Why would I ever sell it? It seemed to be worth so much more that the $6000 or so it might fetch if I tried to sell it. Well, that's no longer my choice. Even if the police do manage to recover it, most likely it will never be the same again. I KNOW it will never feel the same again. She was my first big purchase - I bought her (with some help from mom and dad) the summer before my junior year in college. I paid her off with money from my first real job after college. My boys rode home from the hospital in her. And I thought she would be around for many more years. It still doesn't feel quite real yet - maybe because she hasn't been replaced yet. Maybe because we only realized what had happened to her less than 3 hours ago. Maybe because there's a chance that we'll get her back. I don't even have any pictures of her, except for these interior shots of the boys last year. There's a huge range of emotions I'm feeling right now - Angry - angry that someone stole from me, angry that I missed out working in the gym, angry that someone else is driving my car. Disappointed - that we wont have her in our family any more. Overwhelmed - Police claim, insurance claim, buying new car seats, getting a short term car, finding a long term car. I guess it's good that we weren't planning on going anywhere for Thanksgiving. I am very thankful that my nice Maclaren stroller which I keep in the trunk was on my back porch last night, and that there was really nothing of any value in my car. And I'm looking forward to getting some distance from this incident so it wont be so emotionally exhausting.

Trick or TREAT

We had a really great Halloween this year. It felt especially nice after being locked up inside for a week with the fires we had the week before. Our first really big outing after the fires was our Trunk-or-Treat at the church which was the Friday before Halloween. I forgot my camera, so no pictures of this event, but the kids really enjoyed themselves. Harrison was a frog, and Noah was a pirate. Neither would participate in the costume contest, but both were anxious to go ask for candy from people. Monday night we finally put to use the pumpkins that became ripe in our garden back in July. They were a little dried out, but made for pretty good carving pumpkins. Since we had more pumpkins than usual (and we still have some leftover...) we ventured outside of our usual Jack-O-Lantern faces, and tried some "spooky" designs. Sam did the bat for Harrison (who loved that he had a "spooky" pumpkin) and the spider was for Noah. On Tuesday there was a Halloween party with Harrison's preschool class. This time Harrison was Curious George, and Noah stuck with his pirate ensemble. One of the mom's hosted it at her house, and invited lots of friends (I think there were around 15 little ones) to join in the spooky celebrations. Everyone had a great time making monster hands, learning how to mix up some "magical" potions, and breaking open a witch hat pinata. I stayed so Noah could join in the fun, and he loved it. He discovered candy corns, and did much more eating than art work during the craft. Then came Wednesday, and the real Halloween. Harrison decided that this time he would be Tigger because, "I was Curious George last Halloween, and a Frog already." A bunch of families in student housing got together to share some food and fun at the park. There was a Halloween puppet show for the kids, and they had a musical parade to show off their costumes. We finished off the celebrations by going trick-or-treating to just a couple houses, but managed to get plenty of candy. I'm ready to move on to Thanksgiving plans now, but I'm glad my boys were able to bet plenty of use out of their Old Navy clearance/garage sale costumes!

4 is Not a Bore

A few weeks ago Harrison said something I've been meaning to write down. So, since this is where I write, I'm putting it here. He asked me "Mom, how do we stay up in Heaven." Upon prodding, I realized he was afraid of going to heaven, because he didn't know how he would stay up (pointing at the sky as he said this) without falling down. So cute! Today he asked me "How many more days will we be on the ground?" Again I was puzzled by what he meant, and when I asked where we would be besides the ground, he looked at me as if I was crazy and exclaimed quite loudly, in the middle of the grocery store, "With our Heavenly Father!" Apparently he's been picking up on a few things in Primary.

Today he was also amazing me with a few non heaven related questions. "Mom, Yep ends in P. Can you hear the 'puh' at then end of Yep? See, it ends in P." And then later today, "Mom, does 2 and 5 make 7?" And then a few minutes ago he asked me to write down the names of his preschool friends. I was at the computer typing them, and as I completed each name (without saying them myself) Harrison said the names. After I typed the first one, I was sure it had been luck, thinking he would get the next one wrong. But he got all 5 of them. Astonished I asked him if he read them, and he said yes. I asked him how he did that, and he responded "Mom, I just know what they look like." So I guess John, Matthew, Sage, Rachel and Libby will be added to his list of first sight words. The first sight word I realized he had was when we were driving in the car, and said, "Mom, that sign says 'No'. See, N O spells 'No'". He just seems to be growing up so fast lately! He likes to carry around little booklets and asks me to write things in them for him. Today his requests were:

I love Joshua
I love my preschool friends: John, Matthew, Sage, Libby, Rachel
Noah's in my family
This is Harrison's book.
I love my preschool.
I like preschool.
I love the things we do.
I like the things we do.
I want to do the things we do.
I love this world.
I like staying on the ground.

And here's another little conversation from today:
Harrison: "Mom, why does Jesus have special feet to walk on the water?"
Mom: "Well, Jesus is a very special person. He had lots of a faith."
Harrison: "But I have as much faith as Jesus. Why don't my feet walk on water."
Mom: "We are all working towards having faith like Jesus. But we're not quite there yet."
Harrison: "Why not?"
Mom: "I think we'll save this one for your Dad at FHE tonight."
Harrison: "Okay."

My City is On Fire

That's the response I gave my sister when she called yesterday morning to see how we were doing. Sunday as we left church there was that smell of smoke in the air and ash falling from the sky, and by Monday night we had our 72 hour kits, air mattress, blankets and other evacuation items lined up at the door waiting in case the order came. At times I felt like I was almost surrounded by fires to the north, east and south. I wasn't really too worried, having gone through this situation 4 years ago (shortly after Harrison was born), but I'll have to admit after going to bed knowing that Del Mar (directly north of us) was being evacuated last night, I did wake up at 4:30 in the morning to check to see if we were under any advisories. This fire, unlike the one last time, seemed likely to hit the coast. Thankfully we haven't come to that point, and it looks like we'll probably avoid it. People are being let back into the areas closest to us, while new evacuation orders have come out for Julian. We were actually planning on going to Julian on Monday - I am sad we wont be making that trip, but very thankful the fires didn't start after we were already there. It's been kind of nice - all four of us have been home together for most of yesterday and today. We tried to make the best of it - the boys didn't seem to mind getting to watch a little more TV than normal, and had a bunch of fun with play-dough in the kitchen. I think they will be wanting to go outside by tomorrow, and hopefully the wind change will make that possible. We've been shut up in our house since Sunday night due to the very poor air quality outside. Tonight we are just thankful that it looks like the worst has passed (at least for us) and life will be getting back to normal very soon. Sam plans to go back to work tomorrow (even though campus is technically closed for the rest of the week - no rest for the anxious to graduate graduate student...), and I might try to make it into the Y tomorrow. It felt nice that we felt pretty well prepared - we had crank operated lights and radios, some water storage, first aid kits and other basic needs and supplies readily on hand. It also felt nice to not have to use them.

Pumpkin Patch

Last Saturday the Grad-Parents organization here at UCSD planned a trip to a pumpkin patch. It was raining in the morning, and we weren't really planning on going, but when we realized we didn't have any other obligations, we decided to go spur of the moment. It felt like a fall day (yippe!) so we felt like doing a fall-ish thing. We ended up having a great time. The Grad-Parents sponsored entry to the petting zoo. There were bunnies, a turtle, several chickens, a llama, a goat, and some little guinea pigs. The llama came a little too close to Noah, and he demanded to be in my arms the rest of our time there. Harrison loved petting the soft bunnies, and thought the guinea pigs were really cute. The goat thought the denim on my jacket might taste nice - I'm just glad he didn't get any skin in that bite! From there we headed over to the hay and corn mazes they had set up. Noah and Harrison could have played for hours on those bails of hay. They climbed jumped ran and fell through them. Harrison raced through the corn maze, leading the way and directing us where the dead ends were, and when to turn around. Once he got to the end, he promptly turned around to go back the other way. Next we headed to the pumpkins. Since we already have 7 pumpkins from our own pumpkin patch we weren't in the market to buy any, but it was fun to tromp through the patch. It was an interesting patch in that it was actually a strawberry patch with pumpkins placed on the straweberry bushes, but I don't think the boys minded at all. I'm glad we did this spur of the moment, because the original plan was to go to Julian today, and hit a pumpkin patch on the way - but these fires have changed all that....