The 4th!

What a Fourth we had!  Started the morning with a ward breakfast.  Piled into the van, turned the key to hear a nice machine gun clicking.  Car wouldn't start (not the thing you want when your minus one job).  Mike called his brother for some ideas while I piled all the kids in Pop-pops car and then we were all off the breakfast (Mike and I still a bit worried about the van). 

Here's the kids on the playground after "eating."

Ali was off with friends.

Side note:  We really like our ward.  Taken a bit to get used to being in a ward with people our own age (most younger, actually).  But man, there's lots of good people down here. 

We've had multiple couples flat out "ask" to be our friends.  We're trying to break out of ourselves and make that happen. 

One gal sitting in front of us turned around before sacrament and told us how she has been wanting to ask us to play Rook with her and her husband.  I mentioned that if she liked Rook, she'd love Hand and Foot.  She took that as a sign from Heaven that is was meant to be (she and her husband we're complaining the night before that they had no one to play Hand and Foot with).  Ha :) 

After that.  The couple behind us asked Mike, "So, do you guys go out with other couples to dinner and stuff like that?  Would you guys want to do that?"  Too funny.  So maybe the whole purpose of moving here is to get us out of our shells. :)

Back to the Fourth

Got home from the breakfast and took the battery to AutoZone to see (to hope... to pray) that the battery was just dead and that that was all that was wrong with the van.

Sure enough, it was dead and thanks to my bigger than average paycheck, buying the new battery was no problem (we have learned to not get excited when my paychecks are bigger than average or when extra money shows up.  We now ask, "So...what's going to break now?"  Ha.

Got home and I took a nap because my stupid new crown is killing me (4 advil every 3-4 hours to make it ache instead of hurt).  I haven't felt pain like this since recovering from my C-Section. 

After my nap everything seemed hunky doory with the van.  Had the hamburgers and hot dogs for dinner and tried to think of what we could do with our bored kids, since it was 100+ degrees outside and fireworks are banned in our city and all of Austin (didn't feel like driving an hour to see the nearest firework show). 

So we opted to let the kids get a new movie.  Loaded up the kids in the van, turned the key (it started... pheew) and drove off to Target.  Got the movie, some treats and got back in the van, turned the key and.... it wouldn't start.  Luckily we had bought jumper cables earlier that day and got a lady to jump our car.  I anbesoled my tooth (which did nothing) while the car got jumped.

It started up, but kept dying slightly when we turned corners and stuff.  So we said a prayer that we'd make it home without the car dying (did not like the idea of sitting in a car on the side of the road  in 100+ degrees with 4 kids, melting ice cream bars and no air conditioning when the rest of the world is off BBQing and doing fireworks.  Would not be fun). 

After a white knuckle car ride, we made the 10 minute (mostly on 50 mile an hour plus roads) drive home with only a few scares.  During all of this, Mike had the thought, Maybe one of the connections is loose on the battery.    Sure enough that's all it was. 

Mike gave me a blessing for my tooth, and we had a good time watching the Boston Pops and the fireworks, followed by a little Diary of a Wimpy Kids; Rodrick Rules.

So...the car is fine, my tooth will likely be fine in a few weeks, just very tender/swollen from the procedure (doc said no root canal needed).  And the kids enjoyed their first firework-less fourth.

Happy Independence Day!