I thought I'd add a little humor to my blog since I usually only post when something horrific has happened. I frequently post my conversations with Miles on facebook. He's a pretty hilarious little fellow....which is good because he's also suuuuuuuper naughty (that's why we're making him go to Catholic preschool--if anyone can whip him in to shape, it's them. ha. ha.). Sometimes I feel guilty that I don't post much about my sweet (and also naughty) little Conan, but there's a reason. I can't post conversations with Conan because Conan doesn't really converse. His vocabulary is ever growing though. I just thought I'd share it with you. This is the Conan Pronunciation Guide (you can call it CPG for short).
bottle=bahtoo
Yo Gabba Gabba=GABBY GABBY!!!!!!!
let's go=ee-koh
cookie=quickie
quiet=kwykee
toothpaste=psht
Phoebe=Beebee
baby=beebee
crying=a-kign
Mickey Mouse=Meekee
Minnie Mouse=Meemee
here you go=ah-go
goodnight=nigh-nigh
toothbrush=bush
Miles=Mighs
stove=uh-hot
bathtub=showee
water=wahtoo
milk=mook
iPad=iPad (he even includes the capital P)
hello=uhyoh
door-doy
stairs-shtees
pat-a-cake=(lifting both legs in the air)pee-kay
this little piggy=(sticking a foot in my face)pee-kay
fruit snack=nack
pacifier=pasthi
get dressed=dsht
sippy cup=sip-see
hair=heh
This is but a sampling. I'm sure that I will have more to add as I hear them.
Friday, August 10, 2012
Another One Bites the Dust--car that is
Well, we are officially a one car family. This is actually the first time since Be and I were married that we've only had one car. That's not to say that we haven't gone through a couple of cars, but with those, we'd had time to plan, save and purchase a replacement before getting rid of the previous. Not so much this time.
Even though it was almost 10 years old, our Intrepid had been a good car. We purchased it when it was already 6 years old, but it had low mileage and had been taken good care of, being used to transport visiting authorities for the church. Anyway, we're certainly not perfect in our upkeep, but we try to stay on top of oil changes and the such.
On Sunday, the car started reading hottish when Ben drove it to Zariah's baby blessing in Stockton, but it wasn't a huge deal. He drove my car to work on Monday and was off on Tuesday. The car seemed okay on Wednesday. He just wouldn't run the AC. Unfortunately, it did end up overheating right as he got off the freeway in SL. I went to meet him, and we were going to have the car towed back to Tooele to have our trusted mechanic look at it. The tow truck was about an hour out, and in the meantime, the car cooled down and started up okay. We decided to cancel the tow, and I'd just follow Ben back to Tooele. I got stuck at a light while still in SL, so I was left far behind Ben. I kept a watchful eye on the side of the road though in case he had to pull off. I never saw our car the entire drive back, so I figured he'd made it to Main Street Garage.
Just as I was about to pull in to the mechanic I got a call. It was a UHP officer requesting that I come pick up my husband. He said that his car had caught fire, but he was okay, and I needed to come get him. Fantastic! I didn't assume it was too big of a deal. We'd actually had a car catch fire before, but it was practically nothing, put itself out quickly, and after some work, was perfectly fine. Boy was I in for a surprise.
I headed back to I-80. The officer had told me that he was at the Great Salt Lake lookout, which was a relief to me because I'm always terrified about stopping on the side of the freeway. Just as I got to the freeway entrance, I saw a giant cloud of black smoke. "Oh please don't be my car!! Be some stupid lightning fire somewhere." A selfish thought, I know. A few miles down the freeway proved otherwise when I could make out a burnt up shell of a car on the other side.
A UHP officer met me at the entrance to the lookout, that had been blockaded, and let me through after a few questions. My favorite was, "Do you by chance have an insurance card? I don't think your husband is going to be able to find his." Ha. Ha. He certainly wouldn't have been able to. The contents of the car were completely burned. Even the seats were disintegrated. It's hard to tell in the photos, but if you look hard, you can see that all that is left of the driver's seat is some fluff that had fallen into the back.
Ben was obviously very shaken, but this was his account of what happened....not in his exact words, but you'll get the idea. He was driving home and was quite a bit ahead of me. Even though the car wasn't registering hot, he noticed a little smoke coming out of the hood, so he pulled off at the lookout. He was still in the car and saw a trucker pull in behind him waving his cell phone. Ben said something like "Thanks, it would be great if I could use your phone. I need to call my wife." The response, "Why would you call your wife? You need to get out of your car right now. It's on fire. You need to call 911." Ben hopped out of the car, the smoke turned black and KABOOM! Fiery inferno!
This is a picture that a UHP officer took with his phone and emailed to Ben. Ben said that it was incredible how quickly the entire car was engulfed in flames. He said it was terrifying but kind of cool when the tires exploded and when the air bag exploded and when the can of febreeze that was sitting in the car exploded. The car was in flames for at least a good 20-25 minutes. I had time to get almost home and back to the lookout, and the last of the flames were just barely going out when I got there. Ben said that the fire was incredible, and you can see how black the smoke is. I could see the giant smoke plumes with no problem from a good 10 miles aways and would have seen them from much further if I would've been paying attention and looked up.
All in all, not a great day. Obviously, Ben missed the day of work, our car exploded, we only had liability on it, so no sort of reimbursement, and there's a chance that we could be held liable for road damage. Despite all of the crappiness, we were definitely blessed. Things worked out with Ben's training, so it wasn't a disaster that he wasn't at work. We were lucky enough to have an observant trucker following Ben that got him out of the car just in time. Without even thinking of a reason why, I had told Miles no when he asked if he could ride home with daddy, an enormous blessing since I know that there wouldn't have been time to get a child out of a car seat. Things could have been so much worse, and I know that we were being looked out for. Sure, we're down a car and are not currently in a position to replace it, so that really sucks, but everyone is safe. And I really think that things will be okay. It's looking like Ben will hopefully be able to change shifts, based on the circumstances, so that the car will be home to take Miles to and from school and to get to and from church. And we'll just take other things as they come up. Bad things happen (seems like pretty frequently at the Jackson residence), but life is good, and we've been able to get through everything so far. I don't think that this challenge will be any different.
Even though it was almost 10 years old, our Intrepid had been a good car. We purchased it when it was already 6 years old, but it had low mileage and had been taken good care of, being used to transport visiting authorities for the church. Anyway, we're certainly not perfect in our upkeep, but we try to stay on top of oil changes and the such.
On Sunday, the car started reading hottish when Ben drove it to Zariah's baby blessing in Stockton, but it wasn't a huge deal. He drove my car to work on Monday and was off on Tuesday. The car seemed okay on Wednesday. He just wouldn't run the AC. Unfortunately, it did end up overheating right as he got off the freeway in SL. I went to meet him, and we were going to have the car towed back to Tooele to have our trusted mechanic look at it. The tow truck was about an hour out, and in the meantime, the car cooled down and started up okay. We decided to cancel the tow, and I'd just follow Ben back to Tooele. I got stuck at a light while still in SL, so I was left far behind Ben. I kept a watchful eye on the side of the road though in case he had to pull off. I never saw our car the entire drive back, so I figured he'd made it to Main Street Garage.
Just as I was about to pull in to the mechanic I got a call. It was a UHP officer requesting that I come pick up my husband. He said that his car had caught fire, but he was okay, and I needed to come get him. Fantastic! I didn't assume it was too big of a deal. We'd actually had a car catch fire before, but it was practically nothing, put itself out quickly, and after some work, was perfectly fine. Boy was I in for a surprise.
I headed back to I-80. The officer had told me that he was at the Great Salt Lake lookout, which was a relief to me because I'm always terrified about stopping on the side of the freeway. Just as I got to the freeway entrance, I saw a giant cloud of black smoke. "Oh please don't be my car!! Be some stupid lightning fire somewhere." A selfish thought, I know. A few miles down the freeway proved otherwise when I could make out a burnt up shell of a car on the other side.
A UHP officer met me at the entrance to the lookout, that had been blockaded, and let me through after a few questions. My favorite was, "Do you by chance have an insurance card? I don't think your husband is going to be able to find his." Ha. Ha. He certainly wouldn't have been able to. The contents of the car were completely burned. Even the seats were disintegrated. It's hard to tell in the photos, but if you look hard, you can see that all that is left of the driver's seat is some fluff that had fallen into the back.
Ben was obviously very shaken, but this was his account of what happened....not in his exact words, but you'll get the idea. He was driving home and was quite a bit ahead of me. Even though the car wasn't registering hot, he noticed a little smoke coming out of the hood, so he pulled off at the lookout. He was still in the car and saw a trucker pull in behind him waving his cell phone. Ben said something like "Thanks, it would be great if I could use your phone. I need to call my wife." The response, "Why would you call your wife? You need to get out of your car right now. It's on fire. You need to call 911." Ben hopped out of the car, the smoke turned black and KABOOM! Fiery inferno!
All in all, not a great day. Obviously, Ben missed the day of work, our car exploded, we only had liability on it, so no sort of reimbursement, and there's a chance that we could be held liable for road damage. Despite all of the crappiness, we were definitely blessed. Things worked out with Ben's training, so it wasn't a disaster that he wasn't at work. We were lucky enough to have an observant trucker following Ben that got him out of the car just in time. Without even thinking of a reason why, I had told Miles no when he asked if he could ride home with daddy, an enormous blessing since I know that there wouldn't have been time to get a child out of a car seat. Things could have been so much worse, and I know that we were being looked out for. Sure, we're down a car and are not currently in a position to replace it, so that really sucks, but everyone is safe. And I really think that things will be okay. It's looking like Ben will hopefully be able to change shifts, based on the circumstances, so that the car will be home to take Miles to and from school and to get to and from church. And we'll just take other things as they come up. Bad things happen (seems like pretty frequently at the Jackson residence), but life is good, and we've been able to get through everything so far. I don't think that this challenge will be any different.
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