| With the changing of the weather, comes the downed leaves. On Monday, we decided to get rid of some our leaves from the back yard. We went out and raked up the leaves and then proceeded to burn them. As we were burning them, we decided to just do some cooking over the fire, and we threw in some tree branches (small ones) and when we had some nice coals from the oak tree, we started to cook some hot dogs and then some marsh mellows. The kids like to cook a lot more than they like to eat their cooking, but it was fun. When we moved out of our apartment in Tucson, we managed to leave the hot dog roasters that Dad made for us. We wend back about a week later and looked for them, but they had evaporated by that time. |
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I suspect that the maintenance men found them, knew what they were and confiscated them. At any rate, we have new ones. These are made out of stainless steel tubing with some tungsten welding (fill) rod on the ends. These are a tad bit to long, and will have to be trimmed down. This event was almost a week ago (tomorrow) and the yard once again looks like it needs to be raked. I think that I will wait until the trees are bare, then tackle the task. One nice thing about the rain (boy - that is an oxymoron) is that the storms rattle the branches enough to supply us with enough oak to cook over in the back yard at the frequency that we seem to be able to consume it. It is nice to grow your own firewood, but I just hope that the branches keep falling in the back yard and not in (or through) the roof. After being up in the attic, it would not take much motivation for the roof to yield to homeless branches that might need a warm place to spend the night. |
| By way of other news, Kyle is experimenting with Newton's laws of physics - namely gravity. He was standing up in the back of his wagon with someone else pulling him. I don't know the details, but he managed to be in a position where he was not able/ready to hold on, and the muscle started to pull the wagon. From the eyewitness reports (they are all minors) he did a flip out of the wagon and managed to land face down on the concrete. In addition to tearing up his lips and chin, he managed to dislodge his left front tooth. Now I don't pretend to know much about the dental arts, but from talking to those who do, they don't seem to be to worried about it. When his tooth was dislodged the root was still attached. It seems like it ripped from the jaw and forced through the gum. Terra took him to his dentist, who pushed it back into place and then glued it to his only remaining front tooth. The dentist took some x-rays and commented that he |  |
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broke his upper jaw, and the gluing action would help the bone heal back together. Again, I don't know much about dentistry, but is seems to me that this procedure may be one of the ones native to Arkansas, but then again, I don't know what else you would do. The dentist also said that once his jaw heals, his tooth should fall out (with in a year) and then this should not affect he permanent tooth from growing in its place (some 4 years in the future). So the next time that you see Kyle, he may be a true Arkansan. Right now, he looks like one of his front teeth (the fixed one) is 8-10 mm lower than the other tooth, but again, no one seems alarmed about this news, and it is normal. I don't know what will become of the event, but as they say stay tuned for details. |
| Kyle did managed to get some perscriptions for some pretty good drugs to dull the pain as "the glue sets", so at least for the time being, he isn't in pain. This all happened on Friday afternoon, and on Saturday, we again decided that it was time for an additional 700 miles to be added to the cars odometer. We figured that since the back tire had 6 nails it in (1 of which was in the side wall and could not be patched) that it would be a great test for fix-a-flat to see if it could keep the air in the radial. At the end of the trip, it was actually sucessful. As you know, Terra has been wanting another vehicle. We have been looking around, and talking to others as to what type of vehicle to pursue. The main debate is weather or not it is worth paying the "premium price" for a Toyota or a honda, or if it was worth paying a "decent price" for any other brand. We have debated and debated over it, and then looked and looked, and finally ended up settling on trying a Toyota. I know lots of other people have owned them and absolutely rave about them, but I have only owned 2. |  |
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Both of them were a pile of junk and promptly died relieving me from the chore of operating them further. Well we thought we would give it one more try. This one we pulled a Braxton on, and purchased it on the internet. In our process of looking around the going price for these things is $13,000. We found a guy selling one for that price and made him a low offer ($9,850), he rejected it, then countered (and we refused) and then accepted, so we made the 6+ hour drive to Birmingham, AL to pick it up yesterday after stopping 3 times for Kyle to vomit on the side of the road. If you have never traveled for a considerable distance (200+ miles) with lots of kids - some of them sick - My hat is off to you. I don't recommend doing it, but I think it is one of those experiences that everyone should try at least once in their lifetime. As much as we didn't want to own a mini-van, they sure make sense when you look and the operational costs of a comparable vehicle. After driving this one back from AL, Terra actually found herself liking the features it has to deal with the rowdy backseat. |
| This is a graphic illustration of the ownership of vehicles over the course of my lifetime. As it shows, some cars I had longer than others, and some at multiple times. I understand the average car is owned for 3-years. That makes me think that some people sure like to get rid of their cars, although, if you averaged these results, I suspect that I would fall close that time line. On another note, now that we have a 2004 Sienna, any one want to purchase a 2001 Expedition??? Also, I am missing my 8-man tent and our 3 camping chairs. Did any one borrow them or know where they are, because I can't find them here. |