RIP Highlander

Strange.  I am so sad about my car being dead, yet when I went to title this blogpost, I realized I never even named my car!  That's weird right?  Everyone names there car... right?

Anyhoo, this story all began a few weeks ago.  I took my car in to get serviced, because the check engine light was on, and my tags were expiring the end of May.  (You can't pass emissions if your check enginge light is on.)  Well of course the check engine light was triggered because a stupid sensor needed to be replaced, and the sensor was expensive, and took a lot of labor to get to and replace.  $750 later, I'm ready to go to drop more $ registering my car.

Highlander in happier times

No prob, I love my car.

Honestly, I love my car!  I just rolled 200,000 miles in my baby, and she was still purring like a kitten.  While we realized with a baby to squeeze in there soon it'd be a tight fit, but I still wasn't interested in getting a new car because, like I said, I love my car!

So I didn't hesitate to volunteer to drive up north for a girls weekend.  My baby made it up the rim, and then stopped forward progress in Heber.  What I mean by that was it felt as if my car had been placed in neutral.  I checked, and it wasn't in neutral.  So we pulled over, called husbands, I held back tears, and then we all jumped in my friend's car, and left my Highlander in Heber for the weekend.

We had hopes that the transmission might cool, and then we'd be able to drive it down the rim, and maybe even into the valley.  So we enjoyed our weekend.  

On the way home, my car was still there, and it drove!!!  For a mile.  Then it went back into "neutral".  So again, I left my car in Heber, this time for a week.  

So the following weekend, we borrowed a friend's truck (this was a long story that I'll spare you, but THANK YOU John Arnett for coming to our rescue!!), rented a tow dolly, and went up to get the car.  Our friends Rick and Jenny were nice enough to let us stay at their cabin since we were going to be up in the area anyway.  

 So we stayed the night in Pinedale which was fun, because this was where we had a cabin until a few years ago.  So we took the kids to see the Pinedale stuff,

 and ancestor's headstones.  That's normal too, right?  Pictures in cemeteries?  

Then all too soon, it was time to go home, and bring the car with us.  

"How is Kristin going to push the car up on this dolly?"

Luckily, it was still where I left it.  Again, a long story here about trying to get ahold of the Donut shop it was parked at to ask them not to tow my car, and never an answer.  I figured they were out of business.  Fortunately for us, it was booming Sunday morning, and when some customers there saw pregnant Kristin trying to push this car up the ramp onto the dolly, they ran out and helped.  We never would have been able to do it on our own.  

We then drove it home, and luckily, when we got to the shop, and no one was around to help us push it this time, it drove!  So we were able to reverse it off the dolly, again, something we wouldn't have been able to push on our own.  

Well then we were left pondering:

Drop $1500-$2000 fixing the transmission on an 11 year old car with 200,000 miles on it?

Or buy a new car?

If I look trashed, it's because we were at the dealership for four hours, and the manager convinced me that I had kidney stones.  Another story for another post.

 Buy a new car!!!

Yep, we roll in a Ford now.

And I LOVE it!!!

And I'd be embarrassed if we told you why we're now Fordies.  It may have something to do with not taking the bail out $, and still kicking A.  hashtagbuyAmerican

And like that I've moved on.  Don't worry Highlander, I did love you, but it's time that we go our separate ways.

And again, I'm a chauffeur.  But now the kids insist on riding in the back back.

Taylor time

As I mentioned earlier, Tara came down with the chitlins for Easter and Aubrey's birthday. Andy was going to come too, but after their trip to Colorado, he figured he better not miss any more work. So sorry Andy, you missed out on a lot of fun!

Like the train park:



And Easter:

We made the girls little Easter skirts and the boys yellow bow ties.

Also, we had a big egg hunt at the park behind our house. When we hid the eggs the park was deserted. While we were waiting for mom et al. to arrive some punk kids came and collected all the filled eggs (and just smashed up the real eggs) so I ran after them and demanded them back and then we re-hid what was left. (which was about half) Stinky. :( But we still had a good hunt!

Then we went up to Aunt Kay's cabin:

Nature walks. The babies were tired.

The boys hugged it out.

And the kids were so excited to see snow!

Easter shirt tradition.

And sidenote- if you ever use fabric crayons to make a shirt,

if you wash the shirt, the crayon comes off.

escape from the heat

For ever I've been wanting to take a trip to the cabin and get out of this 100º+ weather, but it seems like something is going on every weekend. So I was determined this weekend. Turned out Ryan had a lot to do this weekend and wasn't going to be able to go. I figured since he'd be working all weekend we wouldn't see him anyway so I might as well take the kids. So my mom and I drove up with the kids Friday afternoon (dad was going to come up a little later, and that turned out to be this morning).

Oh boy was it a breath of fresh air...literally! I forgot how sweet the air is up on the rim.

It was actually pretty nice having just mom and the kids there.

It POURED last night. The rain was so loud that it woke us in the middle of the night. Thank goodness the cabin is waterproof! (At least it's got that going for it)

Then this morning we took the kids on a hike up a little mountain. It was a little hard for the kids.

Mom helping the kids up the mountain.

Made it to the top!

We also went to the Pinedale cemetery. Here's Gwen in front of her great, great, grandma and grandpa's head stone.

After a Navajo Taco lunch with dad in the Pinedale barn, we drove over to SnowFlake. Here the babies in front of the Jesse N. Smith house. He's their great, great, great, great, great grandpa.

We also had to stop by the SnowFlake temple to let the kids see how pretty it is. And seriously we were so cold! It was like 56º! Then we drove home to the valley where it was a cool 87º.

Great weekend get away. Glad to be home.

cabin

We made it to the cabin the week after Easter. Better late than never huh? It was nice to have Ryan the whole time (last week he had a golf tournament), but we missed others who couldn't make it this weekend.  However we still had so much fun being in nature for the weekend.  Tawnya and Kolby taught us this cool new game called Kubb (coob) that we all loved, the kids were able to have their forest egg hunt, we golfed and jumped off a high tower to swing on a rope over the creek bed.  (I always have to stand on the tower for at least fifteen minutes before I can get the nerves to actually jump)  Here's some pictures to prove it.

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good times

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