The end of the summer has begun. It doesn't happen all at once because Jeff goes back to work as a teacher a week before the kids go back to school as students. First, Jeff goes back to work. Then, fall sports practices begin. Then comes the first day of school. Basically, the end of the summer begins with Jeff starting work, progresses with Jeff and me both starting to coach official cross country practice, (with Jay and Rose attending as members of the team and Amber attending as daughter of the coaches), and finishes with all of the kids starting school. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't feeling all of my usual end of summer beginning of school year emotions, plus a few new ones since this will be Jay's senior year of high school.
I wrote half of this post last Sunday (Aug 16th) but never managed to finish it! It was a busy random week. I'm adding to it now so this post now covers two weeks (August 10-22). Teachers had to be at work for professional development on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday (Aug 17, 18, & 21). It was an odd disjointed start to the year--it kind of felt like a sputtering stop-and-go start, haha. The wildfire smoke hovered on the edges for the last two weeks, but it only stopped us from running outside 1 day. Now for six anecdotes:
I. Freeform Family Feud Card Game
We played the card game Sleeping Queens as a family after dinner a few nights. One night, the game went on and on through four shuffles of the deck. After the fourth shuffle, we decided to go open season freestyle, allowing any card to work for whatever we wanted. Basically we played whatever card we wanted and then justified why it worked. Everyone else decided which side had the better argument and that's how the game progressed. It was contentious bedlam! I ended up winning without knowing it before my turn came around again. I was relieved not to have to enter into the fray of card arguments and justifications, haha. It was a memorable game. I have loved having the time and energy for family games in the evening this summer. We didn't play games every night, but we played way more than we did during the school year. Quality family time!
II. Homemade Pasta
For dinner another night, Jay and his friend Johnny made homemade herb pasta. Johnny had an oldies station crooning in the background while they worked. The kitchen was a bit of a disaster. But it smelled wonderful and they were happily working away, so I left them to it. After about 2 hours, they called us all to dinner. It was good! Jay is so cute with his interest in cooking, and I love how he has friends with the shared interest.
III. Temple Date and Car Troubles
Jeff and I went on a date to the temple on Wednesday afternoon. It was peaceful and happy to be in the temple together. We don't get to go to the temple together very often, so it is a treat to go together when we can, which is about twice a year right now. While we were driving home from the temple, our electric car flashed some warning codes and went into turtle mode. We pulled over and let it rest for a few minutes, then turned off the air conditioning and tried driving again. We got home just fine, but the next morning we discovered that the car wouldn't charge. The issue seemed related to the factory recall work that was done two weeks ago. Blah.
On Friday afternoon, Jeff and I took his car to the closest dealership that services electric vehicles, way out in West Pasco (57 miles away). The car only had 22% battery power left, which was maybe 40 miles by Jeff's best guess. Jeff decided to drive it as far as he could and then get towed in the final few miles. Towing 10 miles is cheaper than towing 57 miles! Jeff used back roads, only drove 45 mph, and kept the air conditioning off to save power. I prayed that he would make it safely, and a miracle occurred: Jeff made it all the way to the dealership and there was still 8% left on the car battery when he arrived. Whew! Meanwhile I made my way to the dealership in our van to pick Jeff up. I took several wrong turns and crossed the Columbia River twice before I finally found the right place. We were down to two cars over the weekend--a bit frustrating, but completely doable.
IV. A Weekend Sister Visit!
On Friday night, my sister Melody and her family came to visit us for the weekend! It was a quick Friday night to Sunday afternoon visit, but we had a pleasant time talking and playing with 2.5 year old Dahlia and watching their dog Pancha chase the neighbors' escaped goats out of our yard.
Mel came to my Sunday school class on Sunday and shared a story from her mission in connection with a beautiful video by Elder Dale G. Renlund that was in the lesson. In the video, Elder Renlund talked about a time he visited Cambodia and saw the Killing Fields, which made him ponder how Jesus Christ's atonement applies to such horrors of war. I love that the inspiration he received from the Lord was "Don't worry about these people. I've got them." Since Mel was in town, I asked her to share a story from her mission to Cambodia of someone who overcame trials with the help of Jesus Christ. She shared a beautiful sweet story of a woman who survived the genocide and was baptized. Then I had the class look up some verses and share what they taught about the plan of salvation. The kids (ages 17-18) shared such good insights! I am constantly impressed with these teenagers and their willingness to engage in gospel study and teaching.
V. More Car Woes
Monday August 17th was Jeff's first day back to work for the new school year. He planned to drive Jay's car (a 2016 Nissan Leaf). The car wouldn't start for the first time ever. We have never had to do any maintenance on that car since we bought it nearly 7 years ago, so that should have made its first ever problem easier to swallow...except it was our second car to die in two days! Google revealed that in addition to large EV batteries, our electric car also has a 12 volt battery that starts the car. That battery needed to be replaced. Jeff was running late for work due to the non-starting car, so I drove him to school in our last remaining vehicle: our minivan.
After cross country practice, Jay's auto-savvy friends looked under the hood and showed Jay how to remove the very crusty 12 volt battery. We went to O'Reilly's, got another battery, and Jay hooked it up all by himself! When I went out to check on his progress, he was fuming mad. The clamps holding the battery in place kept slipping and he couldn't get them tightened. I joined in and did my first ever under-the-hood car maintenance! We needed four hands to hold various rods in place while we tightened it up. It worked! The car drives again. It was such a relief to have a $198 DIY repair after thinking we had lost two cars in two days. Jay summed it up "Today I learned that I do NOT want is to be a mechanic!"
Later that same Monday, the dealership called and informed Jeff that his 2020 Nissan Leaf EV was completely dead. Jeff broke the news to me in a whisper at the beginning of our coaches' first aid and CPR recertification class at the high school. My heart SANK. We just paid that car off last month and were looking forward to several years of car-debt-free bliss! The battery had bricked during the recall service 2 weeks ago, so Nissan would give us Kelley Blue Book value plus 40% to replace it. We still haven't been told what that exact amount will be, but Jeff estimated that it would be a few thousand dollars short of what we need to replace the car with another electric vehicle. We groaned and grumbled--more car payments after ONE MONTH off? Also, this couldn't have happened even two weeks ago? You know, during summer break, when we had actual time to shop for cars. The only silver lining I could scrape together in this situation was at least we had been putting off getting new tires for that car!
VI. The New Car
We figured we'd just wait till maybe Labor Day weekend or something to hopefully find a replacement car. The next thing I knew, Jeff took Jay to the tri cities to shop for cars. It was only two days after the news that our car was dead. Jeff had that Wednesday off of work and he had to go in to get all of his stuff out of the dead car (especially the garage door opener!) so he decided to do a little car shopping on the side. He brought Jay just in case he found a car and needed someone to drive our van back home. Spoiler alert: Jeff found a suitable electric vehicle and bought it. Thankfully he found a pretty good deal, so once the Nissan compensation comes through, we should "only" have to scrape together a few more thousand dollars, about one season of coach pay. Sigh. This world is expensive, especially when we choose to go the luxury route of having THREE motor vehicles.
Jeff bought a silver 2021 VW ID 4 with 60,000 miles on it. I was out of town at the time so I don't have a ton of details, but the deed is done.
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