I haven't been blogging much lately. Here's why...the last few months have been a bit busy and stressful. I'll summarize:
November:
Day before Thanksgiving...the check engine light on our Honda Pilot came on. We took it in the day after Thanksgiving (of course our warranty is passed). It ended up being a tank of bad gas. Easy fix, right? Nope. They had to drain the tank, clean it out...etc., etc., etc.. $600 later, one day with a rental car, the check engine light is back off.
December:
Beginning of...we needed new tires on our car (yup, the Honda). We had less than 20,000 miles on the 60,000 mile tires we'd bought the previous spring. We didn't have proof of all the tire rotations (which we are guilty of not doing ALL of then necessary ones, but we did have them rotated), and after fighting with Costco for about a week, we were denied our claim for compensation, and had to purchase new tires. ($885)
Day after we get our new tires... we get a flat tire. :( It was a rock that sliced into the tire. I hate how Idaho uses HUGE pieces of rock to "sand" the roads in the winter! Les Schwab did fix it for free...glad we have road-hazard insurance!!!
That same week...We had to do scheduled maintenance on our Pilot (transmission fluid, and VTM fluid changed, rear brakes replaced $300).
Middle of December: Check engine light comes back on. We make another appointment with Honda. (The dealership is in Coeur D Alene, so while our car is being worked on, we have no other car...and we're stuck at the dealership with two little boys.)
The next day, the check engine light goes back off. We cancel the appointment with the dealership, and get ready for our appointments in Salt Lake City for Brenton.
Week before Christmas: Head to Utah for Brenton's appointments. All turns out amazingly well (he's a healthy boy, and will out-grow all the problems he's been having). Check engine light comes back on in the Pilot. Next day, it goes back off. We drive back home the week of Christmas.
Week of Christmas: Check engine light comes back on. Goes back off in a few hours. Two days after we get home, we have Alex's birthday party, and family arrives for Christmas. We have a WONDERFUL Christmas. Hopefully soon, I'll post pictures. :)
1st week of January: Celebrate our 12th anniversary by going to a movie almost a week later. Check engine light comes back on. This time it stays on.
2nd week of January:
Take our car back into Honda. (It was the first appointment I could get without interrupting the boys' school schedules. After waiting at the dealership for 2 hours, we find out that there are SEVERAL problems with our car, and it will be about 3-4 more hours of work (and about $600) to fix the problems. They take us to the Kroc center to blow some time, and come back to pick us up about 3 hours later. After arriving back at the dealership, and waiting another hour, the service manager comes in and says that there's no way the car will be done that day, and wants to give us a rental car for the night. The boys and I load up into the shuttle, and head up to the car rental place. (Wish I would've known our car wouldn't be done that day, and I could've saved about 6 hours of wait time in Coeur D Alene!) We get a rental car for the night.
We head home. The next day we are heading up to Sandpoint to some timeshare condos for a long weekend. We load up the rental car, I head to the bus stop to pick up Brenton, and on the way back, notice we have a flat tire...yes...in the rental car! It ends up being the same thing as before...a piece of rock slicing through the tire! Did I say I hate how Idaho "sands" the roads?!
We call the rental place, and they say it will take about 45 minutes to get someone out there to change the tire for us. We say no thank you, since the dealership and the car rental place are closing in about an hour, and we live about 40 minutes from either of them. We unload all our packing for the weekend from the trunk, Kale gets out the spare, and changes the tire. (I was actually quite impressed at how quick he was with it:), we load our stuff back up, and head over to Coeur D Alene.
We get to the dealership, our car is done! (They think the problems we are having are all related to the bad gas we got back in November.) We unload the rental car, load the stuff into our car, and go return the rental car, and head up to Sandpoint for the weekend.
So grateful for the weekend!!! We relaxed in the condo, went swimming several times, made s'mores in the fireplace, and just enjoyed being away from it all.
As of now, our check engine light is still off in our car, and it's still running well. Hopefully, they've fixed the problems for good!
All of this is going on while the Brenton is in a school that we have to drive 15 minutes each way to get him there (I'm not complaining about that, we LOVE the school!), Alex is in preschool two mornings per week, I'm working part time at home and some in the office, I'm volunteering for Fuller Center for Housing doing bookkeeping and helping with the newsletter (I had to do December's by myself).
I'm ready for things to calm down. I have told Fuller Center that I can't help as much as I'd hoped to...and only call me to do things when absolutely necessary. I was volunteering for my MOPS organization, but have had to say I can no longer do that either. It got to the point, that when someone would ask what I was doing for the week, I'd almost start to cry I was so overwhelmed.
Hopefully, things will be better, and we can relax and enjoy life with my kids, and volunteer in the kids classrooms. That's my goal!
November:
Day before Thanksgiving...the check engine light on our Honda Pilot came on. We took it in the day after Thanksgiving (of course our warranty is passed). It ended up being a tank of bad gas. Easy fix, right? Nope. They had to drain the tank, clean it out...etc., etc., etc.. $600 later, one day with a rental car, the check engine light is back off.
December:
Beginning of...we needed new tires on our car (yup, the Honda). We had less than 20,000 miles on the 60,000 mile tires we'd bought the previous spring. We didn't have proof of all the tire rotations (which we are guilty of not doing ALL of then necessary ones, but we did have them rotated), and after fighting with Costco for about a week, we were denied our claim for compensation, and had to purchase new tires. ($885)
Day after we get our new tires... we get a flat tire. :( It was a rock that sliced into the tire. I hate how Idaho uses HUGE pieces of rock to "sand" the roads in the winter! Les Schwab did fix it for free...glad we have road-hazard insurance!!!
That same week...We had to do scheduled maintenance on our Pilot (transmission fluid, and VTM fluid changed, rear brakes replaced $300).
Middle of December: Check engine light comes back on. We make another appointment with Honda. (The dealership is in Coeur D Alene, so while our car is being worked on, we have no other car...and we're stuck at the dealership with two little boys.)
The next day, the check engine light goes back off. We cancel the appointment with the dealership, and get ready for our appointments in Salt Lake City for Brenton.
Week before Christmas: Head to Utah for Brenton's appointments. All turns out amazingly well (he's a healthy boy, and will out-grow all the problems he's been having). Check engine light comes back on in the Pilot. Next day, it goes back off. We drive back home the week of Christmas.
Week of Christmas: Check engine light comes back on. Goes back off in a few hours. Two days after we get home, we have Alex's birthday party, and family arrives for Christmas. We have a WONDERFUL Christmas. Hopefully soon, I'll post pictures. :)
1st week of January: Celebrate our 12th anniversary by going to a movie almost a week later. Check engine light comes back on. This time it stays on.
2nd week of January:
Take our car back into Honda. (It was the first appointment I could get without interrupting the boys' school schedules. After waiting at the dealership for 2 hours, we find out that there are SEVERAL problems with our car, and it will be about 3-4 more hours of work (and about $600) to fix the problems. They take us to the Kroc center to blow some time, and come back to pick us up about 3 hours later. After arriving back at the dealership, and waiting another hour, the service manager comes in and says that there's no way the car will be done that day, and wants to give us a rental car for the night. The boys and I load up into the shuttle, and head up to the car rental place. (Wish I would've known our car wouldn't be done that day, and I could've saved about 6 hours of wait time in Coeur D Alene!) We get a rental car for the night.
We head home. The next day we are heading up to Sandpoint to some timeshare condos for a long weekend. We load up the rental car, I head to the bus stop to pick up Brenton, and on the way back, notice we have a flat tire...yes...in the rental car! It ends up being the same thing as before...a piece of rock slicing through the tire! Did I say I hate how Idaho "sands" the roads?!
We call the rental place, and they say it will take about 45 minutes to get someone out there to change the tire for us. We say no thank you, since the dealership and the car rental place are closing in about an hour, and we live about 40 minutes from either of them. We unload all our packing for the weekend from the trunk, Kale gets out the spare, and changes the tire. (I was actually quite impressed at how quick he was with it:), we load our stuff back up, and head over to Coeur D Alene.
We get to the dealership, our car is done! (They think the problems we are having are all related to the bad gas we got back in November.) We unload the rental car, load the stuff into our car, and go return the rental car, and head up to Sandpoint for the weekend.
So grateful for the weekend!!! We relaxed in the condo, went swimming several times, made s'mores in the fireplace, and just enjoyed being away from it all.
As of now, our check engine light is still off in our car, and it's still running well. Hopefully, they've fixed the problems for good!
All of this is going on while the Brenton is in a school that we have to drive 15 minutes each way to get him there (I'm not complaining about that, we LOVE the school!), Alex is in preschool two mornings per week, I'm working part time at home and some in the office, I'm volunteering for Fuller Center for Housing doing bookkeeping and helping with the newsletter (I had to do December's by myself).
I'm ready for things to calm down. I have told Fuller Center that I can't help as much as I'd hoped to...and only call me to do things when absolutely necessary. I was volunteering for my MOPS organization, but have had to say I can no longer do that either. It got to the point, that when someone would ask what I was doing for the week, I'd almost start to cry I was so overwhelmed.
Hopefully, things will be better, and we can relax and enjoy life with my kids, and volunteer in the kids classrooms. That's my goal!
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