Quiet Week

It was not a particularly exciting week, which is a good thing. Families here and far have been stricken by a variety of illnesses.  A couple of large families we know have been hit with a nasty stomach bug. The wonderful teacher who assesses our children got so sick with something respiratory that she had to go to the ER.  So we are thankful for being fairly healthy.

Kevin and I have been extra tired, so we may have some little thing, but all in all we are well.

The weather was very odd this week. Temps soared into the low 60's.  In January.  Crazy, but we did enjoy being able to run around outside without any bugs biting us.

We've been thinking about replacing our Mazda MPV minivan. It is a ripe 17 years old, which is distinguished for a vehicle. This is also the minivan that took the brunt of the first accident I ever had in my life, back in October.  It still drives fine, but it has a nasty dent in the back.

We're eyeing a Chrysler Pacifica.  It is a new model for Chrysler, and one of the higher end versions of it has a bunch of safety features we want in our next minivan. Also, and Kevin is super excited about this, the middle seats fold into the floor.  We both have back problems, and it is hard on him (I never do it) when he has to pull out the seats to transport something in the back of the minivan.

Unfortunately, since it is a new model, there are not many used ones around and the ones that are used are still quite pricey. We're going to save up some more before taking the plunge.  If we can make the MPV keep working until fall, the new Pacifica will come out and the 2017's will likely drop in price.

It'll be nice to have a new vehicle. I've never been very enthusiastic about cars, but I admit the new safety features are wonderful. The red Mazda 3 has blind spot monitoring and it really is awesome.

Naomi and Lydia are taking Spanish again, in a nearby town. We continue to enjoy having a teen driver. Lydia is working on the class portion of driver's ed and will likely get her temps in the next few months. Then we get to start all that up again, the 50 hours of practice driving including 10 night hours.

I finished my Star Wars fan fiction this morning.  It was really a lot of fun.  I am not someone with traditional hobbies like playing instruments or crocheting or knitting. I adore reading. And rather to my surprise, I discovered I really enjoyed writing fiction. I mean, I used to, 20+ years ago, but I still enjoy it. So we'll see -- I have another plot bunny floating around in my head and may try to put it down soon.

That's about it.

Oh, we had one minor lament recently. Kevin is working on our taxes and  we no longer get a child tax credit for Naomi since she turned 17 in 2016 :-). But we still get a deduction.  Those are different things.  I didn't know that 'til this moment, when Kevin corrected me. Can you tell I don't do the taxes?