What color car are you looking for, sweetie?

Craig and I went to look at cars last weekend (the reason for that is another story entirely). Now, I'm the first to admit that my criteria for a new car is vague at best. I want a small car - I drive a Mini Cooper that I love and I feel like a behemoth driving Craig's MDX. But I do not want to feel like a giant INSIDE the car - it must have headroom and very adjustable seats. And because I hate getting fuel (so much so that I drove out of my way to pay extra at a full service station for years), I'd consider an electric or hybrid.

(This is my neighbor's VOLT. I saw it charging in the driveway when I was walking on Monday and had to take a picture because this was one of the cars I looked at last weekend...and I found it a little strange to see it charging in the driveway.)

Looking mostly at electrics and hybrids last weekend, I think I stumped the salespeople when I answered in the negative to their first question: "Do you drive a lot?" Okay, so you can't sell me one the fuel savings and I realize this has thrown you off your pitch. But why on earth is your next question: "What color car are you looking for?"

Do they really think that if I sat in the right color car I would decide I needed to have *that* car? We are looking at brand new cars. Do they think I don't know I could get any of these cars in the color I wanted? I found this a little insulting, especially as the salespeople never asked Craig what color he wanted. They asked him questions about the CAR we were looking for, not the paint.

Of course, my faith was restored when I went to the MINI dealership. There, the salesman explained to me the difference in size between all the models (one is 10 inches longer than my car, the other is 15.5 inches longer and 6.5 inches wider). He showed me the different backseat options. He started up a car on the showroom floor to show me the navigation system. And he only mentioned in passing, after discussing the vehicles for thirty minutes, that the cars came in a variety of colors with different packages.

Summer (featuring Kai)

We have a busy summer planned this year. I'm really enjoying my summer sewing class. I finished my bag:



The bag is for Kai. Every day when I come back from class she asks if it is finished. Now it's finished, but I had to turn it in for grading. I'm working on a matching shirt, which will more likely fit a teddy bear than Kai. But I'm far enough ahead in class that I think I'm going to cut out a second shirt in Kai's size and see if I can get that put together during class as well (and not have to turn it in for grading).

The other day, Kai decided she was not sold on summer and asked me to help her put this lovely outfit on:



And yes, she asked me if Santa Clause could come soon. Because she was wearing her Christmas dress...

Another evening, she climbed up in my lap and asked if I could take a picture to send to Auntie Mal. This was the result of that impromptu photo shoot:



And then there's this gem:

I had gotten a package in the mail and Kai wanted to ask Craig if I could open it so she could see inside. She told me exactly what she would say, but when I started to take a video, she got very confused. She was expecting me to FaceTime him, so she was bewildered when he didn't answer and wasn't on the screen. But with prompting she asked her question.

Walking

One of my goals this summer is to take longer and faster walks. I use the Nike Running app to track my walks. I'm delighted to say that my walks are getting both longer and faster:



When I walk, I frequently go up Euclid, a lovely tree lined street with a walking path in the middle (I'm told there used to be a trolley line here). Here's a picture of the path:



The interesting thing about Euclid (and this path I was on) is that it crosses the 210 without acknowledging that it crosses over a ten lane highway. But as you can see from this picture, the 210 roars by under the road...and under all those trees!



Here's a cropped version of that photo, which shows the highway more clearly:



Freaky, isn't it? It's even stranger to drive under on the 210. Someday I'll have to take a picture of it from that angle.

Outstanding in the Field

I picked Craig up from the airport Saturday morning. His plane was scheduled to land at 10:05. It didn't land until 10:26, which was good because traffic was horrible. I had allowed an hour, it took closer to 90 minutes. My traffic struggles did not end at the airport either. I made a wrong turn that took me up to the departure level. In my return to the terminal, I found myself driving on the wrong side of the road! Whoever designed LAX did not account for how unsettling that particular course would be for an American driver. Even with an odd cement curb between the lanes, there is something wrong when opposing traffic is on the passenger side of the car.

It probably didn't help that I was driving Craig's car, as I have most of the week, because Bryce had taken my car to take the ACT. Bryce still prefers to drive my car over his dad's enormous vehicle. I'm less certain why I end up with Craig's car, but that's neither here nor there. And Bryce usually does return my car with fuel, so I can't complain too much.

In any event, Craig's baggage took an equally convoluted route to the baggage claim; therefore, even with my parking struggles, I was standing outside the international arrival area for nearly an hour. Craig, thankfully, drove us home.

He got showered and we took Bryce with us to lunch at Rubio's. I love their fish tacos and Craig always craves Mexican food after traveling overseas. We came back to the house only briefly to drop Bryce off and get our things for Outstanding in the Field. Here we are, out at the Temecula Olive Oil Company estate grove:



Craig has a ton of pictures from the meal on Facebook, so I won't repeat them all here. But we had a fantastic time!

Out of the House, and potty training

Earlier last week, we discovered that Bryce was (unwillingly) raising spiders in his room. Handily, Courtney's boyfriend, Mauricio, was here the night Bryce found the spider nest. Mauricio raises snakes in his spare time; I think he enjoyed tearing down the web and killing over 50 spiders. But with Bryce sleeping on the chair-and-a-half, I called the property manager who promised this could be fixed more quickly than the oven (which was finally fixed on, if I didn't mention, after over two months without a working oven).

The exterminator was scheduled for Friday morning. Courtney, Bryce and I prepared his room. The instructions said to move all the furniture 2-3 feet from the room. Even after removing some of Bryce's things (his computer chair and clothes hamper), it wasn't possible to get everything that far from the walls. His room is small! But we did the best we could:



Bryce was at school, but Courtney, Kai and I had to be out of the house for at least four hours following the treatment. Did I mention that Courtney has been potty training Kai this week? It had gone well, but Courtney rarely left the house. As we planned our day, I mentioned that she shouldn't forget Kai's potty. She said that she had been tempted to do that, but worried it was weird. I don't think anyone with a toddler and a large vehicle would find this unusual. For those driving past us in the parking garage like this:



Well...who can say what they were thinking. We did try to keep it classy by giving Kai a little added privacy this way:



Kai did great! We were out of the house for closer to seven hours and she didn't have a single accident. There was only one false rush to find a bathroom. Unfortunately, we were at the Container Store at the time and their bathroom was out of service. Courtney and Kai ran down the street to the nearest restaurant, which was still closed. But a prepping chef let them in and unlocked the bathroom for her. Kai wouldn't actually go on the "big potty", but Courtney didn't tell the helpful man that part of the story.

We wasted over an hour at the Container Store (not sure how that happened) before our appointments at the Apple Store. Courtney got her phone replaced, but my technician neither fixed nor replaced mine. (Craig and I have appointments today to try again.) We stopped at a mall to make some returns, got lunch, and went to IKEA! I haven't been before. The store is enormous. We were looking for something for Courtney, but instead ended up with this:



It was a long day, but Kai did wonderful. At least until we got home, but that's another unfortunate story.

Keeping Busy

With Craig in Singapore (with a side-trip to Jakarta), I've still managed to keep busy. Kai helped me make Grandma Fern's carrot cookies (modified so they have no dairy, of course):



And I started a sewing class! It's through a nearby community college, so it's a little intense (four hours, every Tuesday and Thursday), but so far I love it! I took a picture on the first day. I'm practicing sewing on paper:



Today we made patterns for tote bags, cut out our patterns, pinned it to the material, cut our material, and fused interfacing to the material. Our instructor suggested using a tool box for our sewing supplies. We got an extra tool box at our housewarming party, so I decided I would start with it. Here it is:



The fabric you can see is for my tote bag (I'm making it for Kai). My sewing box attracted lots of attention - everyone loved it! I did learn I need to store my scissors in the other direction, though (getting out of Craig's car with all my things after class, I fell into the car and essentially "keyed" it with the scissors...oops!).