Laugh, then sigh

This about sums up my day.

This was one of those "cook on the oven rack" pizzas, but it's a family size pizza so it touches both the front and back of the oven.  The cheese melted to the oven door, and this is what happened when I tried to check on the pizza..

Fancy New Wheels

Our minivan had seen better days.  It's seen us through 6.5 years and some hard lovin'.  Things were starting to wear out.  The sliding doors weren't sliding as nicely as they used to, the check engine light was always on, and sometimes I would push on the accelerator and we would... not go... lurch... then go... lurch... go again, for reals this time.  And let's not forget my favorite thing- the button release thingy on the shifter (the one that goes from park to reverse to drive) would get stuck, and I could be stuck in park and not be able to leave the house, or I would be unable to shift back into park.  One time the shifter was in park, but the button was stuck "in" and so we could not turn off the car.  The key refused to turn.  That was awesome.  Ryan ended up disconnecting the battery.  We have a mechanic friend from church, and after taking it for a spin himself and doing a quick (and free) check under the hood, he estimated we could sink anywhere from $3-4,000+ and he wasn't sure that would even get us another year out of it before something else would go. 

Nice.

Then he asked if we had considered buying again.  

Well, as a matter of fact, yes we had.  We were just hoping for that other year first.  Oh well.

So last Monday afternoon we took some test drives.  Unexpectedly, the Toyota was the favorite.  We were originally thinking another Kia, for price reasons.  Another unexpected wrench in our plans was the fact that gently used minivans were not as cheap as they were last time around.  It was only going to save us maybe 4-ish grand, and the mileage was a bit higher than we preferred.  The car salesman pointed out the Labor Day sale, model year end clearance, 0% financing deal that was going on.  After their version of a "quick" check of what they could do for us, we thanked him and said we wanted to go home and look over our budget before buying.  He was not excited for this idea.  Getting us into the showroom is almost a guaranteed sale, and we were not fitting into his plans.  The natives were getting restless and wanted dinner at that point.  The girls had been quite good.  We thanked him and said we would likely be back.

Yesterday, we cleaned a bunch of crap (yes, that's totally what it was- paper scraps, pencils, pens, used kleenex, coins, dolls, earrings, stale bread crusts, baggies, fruit snack wrappers, receipts, old parking permits for state land, books, and more crumbs than you can possibly imagine) out of the minivan.  We made the kids help, all the while getting more and more upset at what filthy pack rats our children are.  Then Ryan and I told the kids to say goodbye to our car.

We came home with this pretty, brand spankin' new Toyota Sienna.

We left the kids to babysit themselves at home, which worked out well.  When we bought the Kia Emma was 5 and Elizabeth was barely 3.  This time was easier.  Although it was probably faster last time, since the car was not new and they weren't trying to convince us to buy every extra feature possible.  (Thanks, but no, we don't need the special Rain-X coating on our windshield...)

When the last paper was signed, and it was time to go home, I felt a little sentimental leaving our Kia sitting there surrounded by a sea of shiny cars.  I'd swear that poor, 9 year old, dirty, chipped piece of our memories was looking at me reproachfully as we left in our new set of wheels.  Ryan asked if I was going to cry before we left to go buy the Sienna.  Seeing how I was pregnant BOTH times we've traded in our cars, and cried over diaper and Hallmark card commercials, yes I did cry last time.  (We brought our baby/s home from the hospital, gone on trips, and I've spent countless hours in the car and it's been a big part of our life....  I can't help being a little sentimental.  So sue me.)  I would like to state for the record I shed no tears leaving the Kia behind, just felt a little sad.

That lasted about 10 minutes.

Our new minivan is so cool.  I haven't been actually excited to drive since I was a teenager.  I have to remind myself to actually pay attention to the road.  I have a rear back-up camera (Best. Feature. Ever.), bluetooth calling/audio from my phone, gas consumption, power open and close doors (second best feature), power adjust seat (forward, back, up, down, lumbar support), automatic night adjusting rear-view mirror, and a host of other nifty features.  I had my pick between grey and tan minivans, and I chose the grey.  I think the only thing I miss about the old car is the red color- it was easier to spot in a parking lot.  I'm still getting used to how this one looks.  Oh, and this car also has driver and passenger temperature controls, with a 3rd zone for the back seats.  This is a marriage-saving feature for us.  I'm so glad the Kia had that too.  Don't get me wrong- we bought the base model for the Sienna, it just happens to be as fancy as a more expensive version of the Kia.  (Our mechanic friend thinks we will be pleased with how this one lasts.  It should do better than the Kia.)

Ryan's mom wanted a picture of us next to our new car for her scrapbook page she's doing of all the new cars in her family this year.  Ryan's sister Brynne was first, followed by Caitlin (x2- suburban and regular commuter car), the Rick and Kim with their Toyota Hybrid, then Michael, and lastly us.  I guess we caved to the peer pressure to buy a new car.  (hehehe)

Update a week later- the dealership called and said they found more stuff in the car (broken necklace chain and .38 cents in change, a magnet, etc.) and did we want to pick the stuff up?  Ryan said to give the change to the guy who had to clean out our old car.  He deserves it.  And to just throw away the rest.  It was nice of them to call though.

Have Some Honey

Ryan has been wanting to harvest honey from his beehives for a while now.  He likes to go check on his bees and admire how busy they've been.  He finally got around to asking to borrow the equipment needed for harvesting honey.  His friend Jason hooked him up.  

First you bring in the frames you are going to harvest from into your now heated garage, after you've knocked off a bunch of angry bees.  Later (once those angry bees leave you alone) you take a hot electric knife to cut off the wax caps.

 It looks like a gross mess.  There is a grate in the bottom of this bin to collect honey, too.

 Then the frames go into the extractor.

 Turn the centrifuge on, and wait.

The honey will start oozing out.  You need a filter to collect bees and wax and stuff.  There were a surprising number of bees gathered during this whole process.  There's only so much "swimming" they can do in the honey.  No bees survived that.

Once the honey is pretty well flung out of the beehive frames, Ryan took a spatula and scraped down the sides of the extractor.  We left the space heater in the garage all night and waited for the honey to all drip into the 5 gallon bucket.  We filled that 5 gallon bucket with honey.  

Ryan collected all of that bees wax into a bucket, and put the bucket next to the beehives.  The goal is to let the bees take the left over honey back, and then we will be left with the bees wax and then we can do.... something with it?  Along with 5 gallons of honey.  That's a lot of honey.  I'd say we could put it into our food storage, but then we will be getting more honey next year with any luck, and the following year, and the year after that, etc.  Oh boy.

After the honey harvest, we went on a double date with Ryan's friend Jason and his wife Lydia for some ice cream and deep friend asparagus.

September 11th

Emma is in the choir this year at her middle school.  It's a "select" choir, for kids who auditioned at the end of the last school year.  They were part of the program/assembly the middle school put on for 9/11.

The assembly was pretty early in the morning (before younger sisters started school), and I wasn't able to make it.  So, I borrowed these pictures from the school district's Facebook page.  Emma is in the front row, in the middle-ish.

School Photos

It doesn't seem to matter how hard we try.  I can send a child to school, looking cute...

 And somehow, this is as good as we get for school photos.

This Studio C skit has explained the mystery of why school photos look like they do.



(I think this is one of my favorite sketches ever.)

Soccer Season Begins

Annie and Maddie are playing soccer this year, and the fall season has begun.  Our team did not have a coach until early this week, and then the teams had some switching around last minute...  Anyway, Annie and Maddie had zero practice before heading to our first game.

 You can't really tell, but Annie is way more excited for soccer than Maddie.

Meeting the coach:

 Annie is wearing friend Sean's soccer jersey.  The jerseys cost $30, and I couldn't justify that x2.  Actually, I didn't even buy one.  We borrowed Sean's jersey (he wasn't a fan of soccer last year) and I bought a plain black shirt, and called it good.  I don't know how enthusiastic the girls are going to be about soccer, and I am cheap.  Perhaps if we do this more than one year, I may even buy the girls soccer shoes.  Maybe.

 We played the other team from our town, and so we got the yellow shirts today.

This is how Maddie played her game- sort of trailing behind the other girls.  Maybe she'll get more into it with some practice.  These are my children we are talking about though.  I make it a habit to stay away from moving balls out of fear, and Ryan isn't exactly extra skilled in sports.  But I want the girls to have more exposure to sports than I did when I was younger, and team sports isn't a bad way to go.

Raspberries, round two

Our raspberry plants are at it again!  The fall crop is never a big one, but it's pretty steady until the frost comes.  I'll take fresh raspberries when I can get them.

Labor Day

We were invited to our bishop's house for a Labor Day bbq and pool fun.  It was all (and I do mean a lot!) kinds of his extended family.... and us.  The kids were very appreciative of the last pool day they were going to get this year.  There's just that moment when people ask, "And you are....?"  Because there's nothing like crashing someone's family gathering, even when you've been invited.  I know there are people out there who can take gatherings like this in stride, but I always feel awkward.  Anyway, the food was good, and the kids had a really nice time.

The Chicken Whisperer

Elizabeth has taken upon herself the job of catching escapee chickens when she gets home from school most days.  She's pretty good at it.  This is a good thing, because our chickens escape regularly these days.

Just some randomness

This is just a post with pictures that do not relate to any of the others.

Oh my goodness.  The zucchini plants will not stop producing.  We are getting so sick of zucchini.  We've traded some zucchini for tomatoes, because our tomato plants were not cared for as well as they should have been.  Tomatoes and zucchini are prolific, and so we are happy to trade with my friend Chantel.  No one ever wants as much zucchini as I have to give away, however.  This picture below represents one day's haul.  

I let the kids put the pie crust in the pie pan.  Can you tell?

Next is the toy room.  I am so tired of this room.  I am also tired of the grumpy inhabitants that refuse to clean up after themselves.  We've tried "locking" the kids in the room until it gets clean.  That doesn't work.  We've tried bribes.  We've tried "consequences."  We've tried reasonable talking.  We've tried yelling like crazy maniacs.  Nothing works.  The kids play, fight, hurt each other, make up plays, fashion shows, scream, hurt each other some more, and pretty much anything else you can think of not cleaning that dang toy room.  That was pretty much our entire month of August.

It was awful.

So, on the first day of school, I cleaned up that toy room by myself.  And then I left a ransom note.

If you want your toys back, it's going to take a LOT of work.  Sadly, the kids did not view this as the calamity I hoped they would.  But they are working towards earning one box of toys back.  They can only earn back one box at a time, a week at a time.  Here's hoping they learn how to pick up after themselves, finally.