Bucket List # 4 Cousin Sleepover

For a very long time Cori has been asking if her cousin could sleepover. The answer was always during the summer. Well it is summer and so its time for a sleepover. All good sleepovers include taking about the couch, eating pizza for dinner, and watching a movie with popcorn. They had a great time and many different things with he couch cushions. And don't let the windows fool you, it really is evening time even though it looks like the middle of the afternoon. 

 Then it was time for bed. I wasn't sure how this would go since it was the first time they had slept together, they were sleeping on the floor, and they were surrounded by toys, but the excitement must have worn them out because it didn't take too long for them to all be asleep.  First cousin sleepover accomplished. 

Bucket List #3 Going to the Movies

Cristina REALLY wanted to see Maleficent. I'm not sure why because she has never shown that much interest in a movie before. She enjoys movies, and loves when we have movie night at home, but has always been happy when what we have of DVD or on Netflix. However, when she saw the previews for Maleficent she really wanted to go. So one afternoon we left Cori with Gigi because she is not into anything remotely scary and thought Maleficent looked way to much for her. We headed to the movies where we enjoyed time with our oldest. 

Bucket List Activity #2 Fixing My Car Problems

I spent the last few weeks of school driving around with no air conditioner. The frustrating part was that my air conditioner actually worked. The problem was my truck was leaking coolant badly, so if I turned on my air conditioner the engine would start to overheat. We were pretty sure that the leak was from the water pump. As soon as school was out, Eddie went to buy a new water pump and we set to work taking off the old one. It went smoothly. Everything came off just like it should, but it was late and we were just outside the girls bedroom. They wouldn't go to sleep because they kept looking out the window at us. We decided we would wait until morning to put the new one on. That was where things stopped going well.

New and old water pumps

The next morning Eddie starts working to put the new water pump on and a bolt breaks. The whole day is spent trying to get it out. Tools are bought, places are visited, but the bolt in completely stuck. It broke off even with the water pump and nothing is getting it to come out. Finally, we gave up on it. We had figured out that the original water pump was fine, it was the gaskets that were bad. We had the gaskets from the new water pump, so we decided to try to put the old one on with new gaskets. This time two bolts broke. Luckily they broke off high and easily came out.

Two broken bolts successfully removed.

We decided we needed another tool to make sure no other bolts broke. The one we had was too big for what we were doing. We headed out in Eddie's car. The first Home Depot didn't have one, but when we got back it his car it wouldn't start. After a little panicking and banging on stuff, it started. We then went to a hardware store close to our house. No tool, and again his car didn't start. After some more banging, it started and we went home. Now we had no car at all. Not a huge deal, it is summer after all, except that Eddie had training everyday the next week, and the girls had swimming lesson and gymnastics practice. Lucky for us my parents are extremely helpful. My dad brought us the tool we needed and let us borrow his car. We successfully put the water pump back on, put in two bottles of coolant, and took a look underneath. A very small drip that might have been where some was spilled. Looking good. We started the truck. It sounded good. One car fixed and one to go. We started to clean up when we took another look underneath. That's when we saw the coolant basically pouring out. Back to no cars fixed.
The next day was Monday (Eddie training didn't start until Tuesday). My mom took the girls to swimming while we took Eddie's car to the dealership to get fixed. Turns out the drive trains had been over stretched and it was completely covered under the warranty. So amazing to not have to spend one cent getting it fixed. We then headed over to a Kia dealership and took care of my car problems. We bought me a new car! Yea!!! Now I don't have to worry about overheating or no AC in the summer. Plus with much better gas mileage I don't have to constantly buy gas.

My first ever new car!

Bucket List Activity #1 Ice Skating

This was on our bucket list last summer, but it never happened. We put it first this year to make sure it happened because both of the girls really wanted to go. We checked the internet and found out the rink opened at 11:00. We arrived just after 11:00 and found a group was playing broom ball until 12:30. We detoured to the food court for some lunch. At 12:30 we headed down to the rink to rent our skates. Getting the skates on was easy enough, getting used to walking on the skates was a lot more difficult. We are used to skating on quad roller skates, so it was very different. We made it to the rink, and after some trouble getting Victoria on the ice, we started off. We were doing okay. Slowly Eddie and Cristina found their footing and were able to skate a little. Victoria, in her usual fashion of extreme confidence, thought she was doing great. She repeated, "I'm getting better" over and over, even as she would fall to the ice. She was impressed at anytime she let go of the wall, no matter how long. Everything was going great until we came to the part of the rink that was sectioned off for skate lessons. Two-thirds of the rink was for open skate and one-third was for skate lessons. That meant that once we had gone two-thirds of the way around we had to cut straight across the rink to make it back to where we started. I was doing okay staying on my feet, but no way could I make it across with Victoria. Eddie managed to get her across, but Victoria didn't make it easy. Luckily by the time we made it around the next time the cones were gone and the skate lessons had been integrated into open skate. Cristina had a great time. She made a friend and spent some time skating with her. Victoria decided she was done with skating forward and kept trying to skate backwards and to do spins (despite the fact she can't go three feet without falling). I love her confidence! :)
Towards the end we did have a minor accident. During one of Cristina's few falls her skate came forward and went across her finger. It looked kinda nasty, but a quick band-aid fixed it and she was back out on the ice.

The best part of eating at a food court is everyone gets to pick what they want to eat. 

Watching the Zamboni clean the ice after broom ball.  

 Putting on our skates.

  The ice ring seems so far away right now.

Getting started.  

Doing better. 

Time to go. We had a great time! 

Cristina's injury. Ouch!

Summer Bucket List

This summer we chose not to take any big trip. Instead, we decided to have a bucket list summer. Our bucket list is all encompassing. We have included many fun things to do with the kids, lots of projects we really want to get done (because they just won't happen during the school year), and a few fun things just for us, plus we are changing and adding things as we think of them. We have also included some goals we hope to reach. My goal for this blog is to document each bucket list activity once it is complete.
Do you have a bucket list? What things do you hope to do?

Cristina's Birthday from way back in March

It's quite late, but here is Cristina's birthday pics.

Cristina decided that she didn't want a party this year. She wanted to go to Rain Forest Cafe. We let her invite two friends, but the big problem with a birthday over spring break is that everyone is busy. So it was just the four of us for lunch.

Before we left she opened her pile of presents. 

She wanted the Poly Pockets that attached to the wall. She already had a few of the smaller pieces.

We got her several more.

She has continued to add to her collection since her birthday. My favorite thing about it is no toys end up on the floor so there is no clean up involved. We have a small table that we keep next to the wall where she can put the small pieces that move around, but other than that it all stays on the wall. Another plus is no other storage place is required. Once we found the wall space for it we didn't need a shelf or cabinet to store it in.

 The main thing Cristina wanted was the chocolate volcano dessert. Last time we were here she saw someone else get it. She couldn't wait to get it herself. Victoria enjoyed the Wiki sticks. 

Cristina's favorite part of her birthday was getting sang to. The waiters at Rain forest Cafe sang to her, then the workers at Build-a-Bear sang to her. She is every bit of an extrovert that I am an introvert. 

The Bombardment of an Introvert

    I am an introvert. My favorite things to do are stay at home with my family and read books on my kindle. In general I don't like people. It is really hard to find people that I feel comfortable with. Kids I like. That is why I love my job: lots of kids, few adults. I am very blessed to work with two of the few people in this world that I do feel comfortable with (On a side note, one of them surprised me tremendously. I am learning that you should not judge a person by other peoples opinions of them) One of the things I hate more than anything is defending myself or debating an issue because I usually feel like I can't get the other person to understand my point of view. I'm not necessarily even trying to change their viewpoint, just show that another valid viewpoint exists. Because I can't get them to understand my viewpoint on a particular matter I often feel like they dismiss my viewpoint altogether and I go back to wondering why I spoke up in the first place.
Today I felt bombarded by the need to defend my viewpoint on a situation that I am dealing with. I was told what I needed. (Please don't tell me what I need. I may be quiet but I am actually quiet capable of meeting my own needs, and my needs may not be the same as yours. Just because you need something does not mean everyone needs that. - Not to mention the difference between a need and a want but that is a different matter) I was told how much could be handled (Again please don't tell me how much can be handled. If a person is choosing to take on a certain amount only that person can decide if it is too much. Maybe others can handle more than you can. Don't put your limitations onto other people. They may be striving to achieve more than you are). Lastly, the situation was judged to quickly. I understand that changes and doing things differently can be uncomfortable for people (they usually are for me) but you cannot judge the validity of something before it has been given the time to succeed. Successful people don't quit after the first attempt and being forced to quit before a full first attempt has been made makes all of us failures.
      I live by the motto that things will work themselves out (again so that I don't have to talk to people to makes things work out) and I am sure this will work itself out also. I also believe that everything happens exactly they way it is supposed to happen even if it is not the way we want it to happen. I am quite sure all my stressing on this matter won't have any effect on the final outcome. However I do wish that people not involve in the matter would stay out of it . . .