The tax man cometh...

I believe in Turbo Tax!! I told Tim I expected to spend about 10 hours doing taxes this year (tallying up all the money we spent registering cars!). We had to figure how much Kennedy cost us, and how much everything else was. After I psyched myself up, I started at 1pm yesterday when Audrey went down for a nap. Tim was on Kennedy duty and I submitted e-file at 3pm. Thats right!

2 HOURS!

I felt like I'd been given a time coupon, and we're getting money back (the feds better not be out of moola) and I'm so excited! Taxes have never made me so happy! Turbo tax lived up to it's name this year baby. Woo Hoo!

Family Picture

The next thing...

I have moved on, said goodbye to my expedition and the van has enjoyed having the driveway all to itself. After a week of a loaner truck, we are pleased to add the next member of our auto tradition to the family. I think it is comical how many vehicles we have owned since Tim and I have been married, the list is as follows (in order of appearance and pictures where possible)

• 1969 red Chevy truck (Tim's from high school, we sold it because we were out of money, otherwise we would have kept it, we kick ourselves for that occasionally).
  
• 1987 silver Ford Tempo (I drove this at Ricks then my folks let us use it for a while when we were first married
• 1994 white Chevy Cavalier
• 2000 Yamaha V-Star (motorcycle)
• 1985 white GMC Jimmy "Blazer"
  
• 1997 green Buick Regal
• 1966 Ford Mustang
  
• 2002 red Mercury Cougar (I won on The Price is Right)
• 2002 yellow Ford Ranger (Tim's folks got this for him for working for him)
• 1968 Ford Mustang (still in the garage, and runnin almost beautifully! We're hangin' on to this classic)

• 1999 red GMC Sierra ext'd cab 4x4 truck
• 2005 silver Nissan Altima (our first and last "new car" purchase from a dealer)
• 2001 white Ford Expedition
• 1982 primer grey Toyota pickup (good little truck, so desirable it was stolen out of our driveway, it's a funny story...)
• 1997 white Isuzu rodeo
• 1999 princess edition blue Pontiac aztec (does this count?)

• 1985 red Chevy truck
• 1968 green Ford Mustang (affectionately named "Betty" and in her 'passing' donated the vital parts for "Sally" to be the girl she is today)

• 1983 maroon chevy truck
• 1999 Honda Shadow (motorcycle)

• 1997 champagne Nissan Altima

• 2001 green Honda Oddessy
• 2000 grey/purple Toyota Tundra

• 1964 BSA motorcycle

PHEW! what a memory trip each car has. I remember as a kid, we had a red Toyota camry 1986ish and my parents wanted to sell it. It had a sun roof and power windows and I cried when they said they were selling it because I thought it was part of our family. I guess they didn't sell it because we had it until it was involved in a gang shooting in west Phoenix in 2002 and it was kept for evidence or something... I have always loved my cars, and I don't know if I'll ever get used to just sell one for the next because I attach to them.

Goodbye ol' friend

In the tradition of "the next thing" we all must move on. I am sad this time. When we sold the weight set for the quad, not much missing that and no downside to the switch. This time I am bummed, for lack of better phraseology. I said an abrupt goodbye to my pimpin' expedition. She was only 97000 miles young and in beautiful condition. We got it all detailed and spit shined and I got to drive her to work one last time on Friday the 13th. I called Tim to tell him to remember my CD in the dash, my heart gem on the rearview, my sunglasses clip on the visor and the umbrella in the pocket behind my seat. At the end of the day, I came home to an empty driveway and a hole in my heart. I know Tim will find us a good "next thing" as we keep in practice of buying and selling vehichles to keep some value in them, but it still sucks for a little while.



Unless Tim surprises me with that cute little...



We'll see.

Happy Valentines Day

As a valentines tradition started a few years ago, we made pink heart shaped pancakes for breakfast this morning. They were just delicious. Aaahh. I learned this art from a fellow named Chuck Woods when I was just a kid up at my folks cabin at Mack's Inn, Idaho. He called them "fish pancakes" and I'd heard about them from my sister Holly, and wondered who the heck would eat fish pancakes. I was happy to learn that the name sake was created because the first cake he made was in the shape of a fish. He simply used pancake batter watered down a bit in a squeeze bottle and put it onto the skillet in the outline of a fish. After it had cooked for a bout 45 seconds, he would pour regular batter over the outline and when it flipped, voila! a fish pancake. Here it is, just for valentine's fun.

Squeeze out the shape... pour over batter...
flip...
enjoy!
with the leftover batter...a new take on learning the alphabet! Audrey and Emma...

All happiness depends on a leisurely breakfast. ~John Gunther
Happy eating!

Trade up...

Due to the quarantine on our house last weekend during Superbowl, I had the opportunity to look at some of my scrapbooks from my senior year in high school through my years at Ricks College and it was like a super trip down memory lane. It was so much fun, so much laughing and remembering. I don't have a scanner, but when I do, man the quality and stories on my blog will improve exponentionally, until then, I just have my digipics to get through. Be it known, if I knew how, I would post some of those crazy funny pictures from years ago in a second (a.k.a. tips on how to scan very welcomed!)

As we are admitted craigslist junkies, we made a trade yesterday. We had a dilemma of whether we would use our weight set... ever. So, we stewed and posted, and waited, we had many offers for trades, and ridiculous low ball offers, but we finally settled on something we might just use a little bit more than that dusty old weight set. Let me just say, the measure of a dad can be made by what he sacrifices right? So, measure the sacrifice of his weight lifting set and all associated with that for this...
Needless to say, the pink camo is probably just the cover for "it's for the girls, for them to play and spend more quality time with us outside..." as Tim rides off into the sunset. This, I beleive, is an investment in now, not what may be or what we wish we could be (as was with the weight set) and I am so excited for the trade! I know many more happy memories will be made with this than would ever be with the weight set!

On the mend...

Everyone is feeling better around here, except for Tim, he seems to have it lingering the worst, I think it's because when he goes down, he goes down hard. Hopefully he can get better soon, until then, ugh.