Driving at midnight

Once a minor gets their license in Georgia they gradually earn more driving privileges. For the first six months they have their license they can only have immediate family members in the car. For the next six months they are allowed to have one (1) non-family member in the car. After that they can drive up to and including three (3) non-family members around. Also, they are forbidden from operating a vehicle between the hours of midnight and 5:00 am (with no exceptions—Rachel told me in the driver's education course she took they said they would take your license from you on the spot and cut it up right in front of your eyes). 

Jump start

On Wednesday last week, Rachel drove the kids to mutual and everything went fine. But when they got in the car to come home...it wouldn't start. So Andrew drove down to the church to rescue them. Fortunately it was a battery thing, so he gave them a jump and Rachel was able to drive home just fine.

And she went to seminary the next day. And the next. And then on Friday she drove to Athens and home again. And on Saturday she drove to Andie's house (to get a ride to a dance). And then drove home from Andie's house after the dance.

And then drove to seminary on Tuesday. 

And every time she turned on the car, it started a bit rough. It was just a little...hesitant to actually start...which was concerning. But we had a plan in place to fix it...but not until Wednesday. 

We just had to get to campus on Tuesday first...

So on Tuesday after Rachel got home from seminary, we hopped in the car, which choked to life, and started on our way to campus. 

We had to stop to fill up on gas, choosing a different gas station than we ordinarily do because...

Sting, Crash, Splash!

Would you look at this adorable bee clinging to our mountain mint?

Edisto Island, Day 4: The van needs a spa day, too...

Mandela Effect re: conversions, transfers, etc.

Today Alexander chose to do his science reading with a laptop open beside him so he could verify facts because in his book he read that baby hedgehogs were called hoglets and that didn't feel very true to him because while he's heard of piglets, he hasn't really heard of hoglets before. But the internet confirmed that baby hedgehogs are often called hoglets and he felt better about verifying that fact. 

Benjamin, meanwhile, was perplexed because in a math problem he solved a few days ago it said that $1 was equal to ¥90 and today a different math problem told him that $1 was equal to ¥80. We researched a bit about how exchange rates change (usually once per day) and what factors might affect that change. 

In fact, today $1 is worth approximately ¥147.

Autumn comes, then let us be glad

I got in the car with the kids last Thursday to find that the air conditioning had gone out—but only on the driver's side. I'm guessing it's a problem with the blend door actuator because I have been curious about those little animal-scratching noises I've been hearing/feeling by my steering wheel and the maker of this video describes such noises. 

Did we take the car into the mechanic in May to get a clean bill of health before driving across the country? Yes.

Did they say anything about the clicking/scratching sound when the A/C was running? No. 

I mean, I didn't either, but it's been doing it for such a long time that it almost feels like it has always been a part of the van. 

No matter. 

It's not making those noises anymore. And it's not making cool air anymore, either. 

Now, math isn't precisely my strong suit, but I'm pretty good at putting two and two together.

Poetry readings

On Saturday, Andrew planned to make tacos for dinner, but then decided Sunday would be a better day for tacos. Besides, Grandpa came over and gave us all a lesson on how to change a tire and we ran out of time to make tacos:

1) Loosen the lug bolts

2) Jack up the car

3) Take off the lug bolts

4) Take off the tire

5) Put on new tire

6) Tighten lug bolts in a star formation (top, bottom, side, bottom, side)

7) Done!

Lost his marbles

For weeks we've been hearing an odd sound in our car every time we rounded a corner—a rolling, a scraping, a gentle clinking as it came to rest on the opposite side of where it once was. We soon recognized it as the sound of a marble rolling around and we figured we'd better find it before it drove us crazy while making our four-day drive across the country.

We checked every cup holder (our van has a generous number of cup holders), every cubby hole, every secret compartment, every last nook and cranny we could think of. The rogue marble was no where to be found.

We continued to voice our consternation over the marble issue until Benjamin came forward to confess that he had "accidentally" stuffed a marble between the lining of the door and the window in—of all places—the back hatch.

How that could have possibly been an accident, we'll never know (because, honestly, he shouldn't "accidentally" have access to the back hatch), but a little investigation revealed that this was indeed the location of the missing marble.

It is stuck deep inside the recesses of our back hatch.

We began brainstorming on how to fix the issue: we would need to take off the lining of the door in order to fish around or perhaps we could just stuff something down there to keep it from moving or perhaps...

"Is it a metal marble?" I asked Benjamin. "Or a glass one?"

Benjamin started shrinking before my eyes; he pulled his head down and raised his shoulders until they were level with his ears. Appearing very turtle-like he asked with a trembling voice, "Which answer is the bad one?"

Not your everyday chores

Within four hours of listing Andrew's scooter for sale it was gone. We were shocked because selling his last scooter took weeks. Of course, that one needed quite a bit of work by the time we sold it and no mechanic for miles around would agree to work on it and we were having a terrible time even finding parts for it online. 

This one, however, we've kept in pretty good shape and it has served us well. 

Church, Scooter trouble, Ukulele performance

Our little ukulele choir was originally scheduled to play for a couple of nursing homes on November 6th, but on Thursday of that week we still hadn't gotten a rental vehicle figured out so told Laura I didn't think I'd be making it to rehearsal on Friday...and that getting anywhere over the weekend looked iffy. By the time we got our rental van (on Friday afternoon) I really had missed rehearsal and we'd already rescheduled our performance for today. 

Andrew's been out of town (yes, again) and last night the bishop picked him up at the bus station and brought him home after the children were in bed. Andrew was up and out of the house before anyone was awake this morning, which meant that the first time the children saw him was at church. 

I'll admit I was a little bummed that even though it was stake conference Andrew ended up being at church early for meetings and was supposed to stay late after for tithing settlement. Ordinarily stake conference is a bit of a "break" in the bishopric's schedule (right?) but due to a strange confluence of events (our stake conference was postponed because of Hurricane Matthew, so it wasn't originally supposed to bite into a tithing settlement Sunday, and our bishop recently returned from a two-month business trip overseas, which meant the bishopric is playing quite a bit of catch up in their meetings and...anyway...) we had meetings scheduled all over the place today. 

I was also stressed out about my schedule for the afternoon. I've been doing alright with being "back in the saddle" after the accident (though, admittedly, I've only driven to church, the school, and the museum) but this afternoon's itinerary had me sweating bullets. I was supposed to drive from (A) our house to (B) Laura's house to (C) the first nursing home to (D) the second nursing home to (E) the church for Parker's baptism and then (F) back home again. 

Driving from point A to point B is quite enough driving for me. Driving from point A, through points B, C, D and E, all the way to F seemed impossible. 

So I emailed Laura to suggest we rehearse at (A) my house instead, since it's much closer to (C) the first nursing home than her house is. She agreed—easier for everyone—so that cut out B. Then we (Andrew and I) looked at Andrew's schedule and mine and we decided that he could meet us at (C) the first nursing home in time to drive us to (D) the second nursing home, which is in an area of town I don't know very well, but if all else failed he could at least meet us at the second nursing home to help me get to the church from there because I really didn't want to drive that section of road. 

So that possibly cut out D, E, and F, which meant I was feeling a lot better about life. 

But when I woke up I had a text from Andrew.

"You will never guess what happened on my way here," he said. "Back scooter tire exploded. I had to push it to the Presbyterian church on the corner. Just got picked up. Rearranging meetings. I'll have to ride home with you."

So, Andrew ended up driving from A to C through F, which was just fine in my book, and the children were so happy to get to spend some time with him after church!

We're a little sad that we have to fix the scooter now (thanks, November) but of all the things that could have followed, "You'll never guess what happened on my way here," blowing a tire seems pretty mild. Or perhaps I just have an overactive imagination.

Oi, what a month. (What do you mean it's the 1st of November?)

Andrew was feeling swamped with school stuff so when Benjamin's soccer practice was cancelled I told Andrew to go ahead and stay on campus. "I'll do soccer tonight," I said. "I'll just take Benjamin and Zoë with me to Miriam's practice and they can play at the playground. It'll be fine."

So we did our typical Tuesday afternoon scramble. Eat something! Get into soccer clothes! Get in the van! Pick up Dylan! Drive to the mall to meet Dylan's mom...

I'm a pretty cautious driver. I plan my routes in advance so that I can get to my destination with the least number of lane changes possible and even if I know where I'm going I usually turn on the GPS anyway so that Siri can soothingly instruct me to "use the two outside lanes to turn right in 500 feet" or whatever she's scripted to do. My children know that they're not supposed to talk to me while I'm driving because it stresses me out. I don't listen to music or podcasts or anything. Getting up to speed is a challenge for me—thirty-five is probably my favourite speed (next to, you know, twenty-five (or, you know, walking)).

Anyway, I was in the far right lane because I knew we had an awful (5-way, super weird) intersection coming up where there is no turn lane, so traffic wanting to turn left is always backed up in the left lane. My plan was to drive in the right lane until I passed that intersection and then I'd move into the left lane (which is a pretty easy lane change since traffic is so backed up, leaving it mostly empty just after the intersection). 

I didn't even make it to that troublesome intersection, however, because...

...OOF!

Saturday is a special day, it's the day we...

We had a great day on Saturday. While Andrew worked and Zoë and I slept in (until 11:30 (because someone was wide awake until 4:00 AM)) the kids played LEGO together quietly and nicely. Then Andrew took Rachel, Benjamin, and Zoë grocery shopping while I worked and Miriam read. When they got home the big people played Settlers of Catan while the little people strung beads and played with dice. Then I took all the kids on a walk to the park while Daddy stayed home to work.

The mail truck finally came while we were out, so Andrew started on fixing that car window, and when we got home the girls helped change the brake lights while Zoë and Benjamin played with bubbles and chalk.

Van update

When we were replacing our harmonic balancer, our neighbour pointed out that our brake pads need to be replaced. It's likely our rotors will need to be replaced as well. Apparently their "life" is around 70000 miles and we're well past that mark. So we've been looking into parts and labour costs (and debating whether it's something we want to tackle ourselves).

Speaking of that harmonic balancer, here's Andrew under the van, working away, under the direction of our neighbour (who actually knew what a harmonic balancer was before ours broke ("harmonic balancer" was news to me)):

Animal crackers and van trouble

I took Zoë out of bed this morning and put her directly into the stroller so that we could walk to the pool in time to meet our friends. Knowing that she'd probably think she needed to have breakfast (these kids—they think they need three meals a day or something) I put some animal crackers in a little container for her.

Not exactly a breakfast of champions, but honestly if she expects more than that she's got to got to bed before 2 AM. Last night she went to bed at 2 AM, woke up twice before 6 AM, and we had to meet our friends at the pool at 9:30. Technically 9:30 isn't early, but we had to walk to the pool so we had to leave at 9:00 because it takes us about twenty minutes to walk to the pool (if I make Benjamin walk) and I wanted to be sure to be a little early.

Lucky for us, our first lesson of the day had to cancel or we'd have had to leave the house even earlier.

And why were we walking? Well, because on Sunday morning when I turned on the van there was a terrible shaking and grinding noise. It sounded like the van was a gravel-chewing monster. I quickly turned it off and texted Andrew.

"Uhhhh...I think we're going to be late," I wrote.

Good morning!

Let me preface this story by saying that Zoë, a terrible sleeper under the best of conditions, is currently in the process of cutting her 1-year molars. So naturally she screamed until 2 am. She has a bit of flair for the dramatic. Staying awake happily until 2 o'clock in the morning is one thing. It's tiring for me, sure, but, like, whatever. Screaming until 2 o'clock in the morning is a horse of a different colour. It's tiring and nerve frazzling, and just...yeah.

So Zoë and I were still sleeping at 10 o'clock this morning. Not that we'd slept straight through from 2 am to 10 am (ha! puh-leeze!), just that we were still asleep at 10 am after the last time we'd gotten up because we were both so exhausted from all the screaming that happened in the night that getting out of bed at 7:00 or even 7:30 seemed impossible. So we just didn't get out of bed.

Andrew put the girls on their bus, as he's been doing every day this year because—I'm not even kidding—this baby will be my undoing (I can feel my sanity peeling away). He fell asleep on the couch accidentally (when he should have been leaving for school) but that meant he was able to intercept Benjamin when he got up. So Benjamin was given breakfast and a show, which meant he had no reason to come and pounce on me.

So Zoë and I were still in bed when my phone started buzzing (at half past 10) with rapidly incoming texts.

*Buzz*

*Buzz*

*Buzz*

*Buzz*

*Buzz*

I grogily fumbled for my phone. The last text Andrew had sent was still lingering on the screen. "Good morning!" it said.

"Holy cow! We really slept in!" I thought, noting the time stamp of his message. Then I unlocked my phone to look the other messages and, suddenly wide awake, thought, "Holy cow! What happened?!"

The other four messages were pictures of Andrew's adventurous morning. He'd gone to pick up a mass cane plant from a friend who recently graduated and "backed up incorrectly" when he was leaving, completely misjudging where the driveway ended and the ditch began.

Saturday Shenanigans

This morning the girls and I tried out for the stake musical—Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. We had to sing and dance and read scripts. It was quite thorough. I'm sure we're destined for starring roles, like Villager #3 or something like that.

We went straight from auditions to Rachel's soccer game, where her team lost 1 to 6. They were actually quite excited about this because there are only two all-girl teams in the league and so they play them every weekend. The first game they lost 1 to 11, the second game they lost 1 to 10, so losing 1 to 6 felt pretty good.

Rachel was goalie for the first half of the game and only let in three goals. She kept out many, many other shots.

What my mornings look...

The other day...or night...I tried to adjust my covers but couldn't. They were stuck firmly out of place. I lifted my head to see what the deal was and there was Benjamin, sleeping soundly at the foot of the bed. He looked as if he had stumbled through our door and just collapsed on the bed before he could bother waking either of us up to tell us what he wanted. I was too tired to move him back to his own bed so I left him there, adjusting my legs so that I wouldn't accidentally kick him off the bed, and snuggled next to Zoë.

Four in the bed is a little bit crowded, but it's nice to be surrounded by so much love.

On the mornings when Benjamin wakes up in his own bed, he quickly runs into my room and jumps into bed with Zoë and me (because that's usually where we can be found (Andrew's been doing bus duty in the morning—because he's a rockstar)). I don't mind so much but, truth be told, Benjamin kind of freaks Zoë out.

Her face reads, "I'm not so sure about this. Save me! Why is he still here?!" while his says something more along the lines of, "I'm so funny. Actually, I'm hilarious! And I'm totally rocking this big brother thing."



They'll sort their relationship out eventually, I suppose.

Out of gas

On Wednesday night we had our ward Halloween party, which started at 6:30. I knew we'd be crunched for time since we had to eat dinner and get all costumed up, especially since Rachel's had a substitute bus driver this past week—which means her bus has been running about half an hour behind schedule. She didn't walk off that bus until 4:30 in the afternoon and—did I mention that's awesome because that used to be her regular time but there was some kid on her route who gets car sick so they reversed the route and now she is supposed to get dropped off at around 4:00.

I think I did a happy dance when I got that letter from the transportation department.

Anyway...

She wanted to play with the neighbours when she got home, so I told her that she was welcome to...until Daddy got home because then it was going to be time for dinner. I expected him home on time because we had this party to get to. But he was late.

I watched the minutes creep by on the clock.

5:05...

5:10...

5:15...

5:20...

5:25...

5:30...

Where was he?! He's not exactly the best at communicating when he's going to be late (eek!).

My own personal mechanic

Yesterday we drove to church and everything was fine and dandy but when we got into our car to come home, things were a lot different...and hotter. In fact, our car was blazing hot, having just sat in the sun for three hours. Andrew turned on the A/C to help cool things down a bit but that only served to fan the flames, so to speak. Hot air was blasting in our faces because the air would only blow if it was on full force.

"Turn it off!" I pleaded with Andrew. "It's so hot!"

"No," he said. "Moving air feels better than stagnant air."

"But it's blowing hot air," I pointed out.

"It'll cool off," he insisted.

Five minutes later, when the air was still as hot as ever is when he finally turned off (and left off) the air and unrolled his window instead. And it was so much better. It was quite obvious our air conditioner had encountered a problem.

Within minutes of arriving home, Andrew had diagnosed the problem, figured out which part to buy, where to get it, and how to install it. He also figured out what's wrong with our clock—it's never had a backlight and we always found this to be irrationally irritating. "Who designed this dashboard?!" we wondered—everything else glowed at night, just not the clock. Sheesh.

And this has been a problem since we first got the van (when the engine of the black car exploded all over the highway). We've been feeling angry about that clock for two and a half years!

Turns out, there's simply a tiny little ($1) lightbulb back there that had burned out.

(Heartfelt apologies to the designer(s) of our dashboard who we may have cursed aloud during late night excursions (like this, "Curse you, dashboard designer!").

This morning Andrew loaded the girls into the van (leaving me and Benjamin sleeping because Benjamin screamed until 5 AM for no apparent reason and didn't sleep soundly after that), dropped Rachel off at school, and then took Miriam to RadioShack (for the lightbulbs) and to AutoZone for the A/C part.

Half an hour and $80 later and we had ourselves a working van!

Happy Everything Day!

It's 11:45 PM on election night and guess what we were doing? If you thought we watched the election results, you're probably right...but only kind of because we don't actually have, like, television. Instead I mixed up some pumpkin bread, Andrew pulled up a website (NPR, maybe) that was tracking the election, and we streamed some more of the West Wing. To prove how irresponsible we are, or perhaps merely to help cool our nerves, we watched three episodes right in a row—up to the episode where President Bartlett is reelected president.

We turned off the show and checked the election results just in time to watch the president win Wisconson, passing the 270 votes he needed to be reelected president.

It was kind of wild to watch two great wins right in a row!

But you didn't come here to hear about politics, I'm sure, and as luck has it I have a very non-political and very happy story to share with you all: we fixed our van!

Andrew was pretty frustrated after he tried to take the door apart on Saturday. Of course we arrived home with only an hour to spare before nightfall so his time was limited. We didn't have the part we needed to fix the van, anyway, but he was feeling like van-fixing was a little out of his realm. I didn't blame him because even van-driving is out of mine.

He tried desperately to fix the van on Sunday—he took it into a shop so they could look at it but they told us that they didn't have time and to come back in a couple hours later. He returned a couple hours later only to be told that they didn't have the part either. He came home feeling morose.

"Thwarted!" he said, "In all my attempts to break the sabbath!"

So we did the only thing we could do: we bundled up in coats and hats and blankets and drove to church with arctic winds blowing through our window.

That might be a bit of an over-exaggeration. I have to admit that of all places to have your window break, North Carolina in November isn't a bad place. It's chilly but not freezing and though it rained while our window was out of commission it didn't storm hard enough to rip off the garbage bag that we taped over our window.

I asked a few of my friends around here for recommendations on car shops since the place we went to quoted us $300 to fix the window regulator. That was going to be a hard bill to swallow.

Did I ever mention that we spent every penny we had moving out here? That we didn't buy any groceries for the whole month of September because Andrew only gets paid once a month...on the last day of the month...and he didn't get paid in August? I don't know if you've ever tried to move and then not stock your refrigerator; it was an interesting experience, that's for sure.