Labor Day

Today is Labor Day and that is exactly what we did -- labor.  Our poor kids -- I think they would have preferred school.  Jase has been doing an awesome job taking care of the lawn each week and the grass is greener that ever.  But our flower beds are overgrown with weeds and look terrible and it has just been too darn hot to have any motivation whatsoever to take care of them.  But the weather today was perfect.  We actually woke up to an overcast day of cooler temperatures and light sprinkling throughout the day. So the kids and I attacked the weeds while Rick did some edging.  Janika preferred to stay indoors to clean the kitchen and make home-made chicken soup for everyone for lunch.

We finally got a ripe watermelon!  Janelle had come home from a school field trip to "Cotton Days" near the end of the school year last year with a little watermelon plant in a cup.  She planted it out in our front flower bed and it grew everywhere tangling itself around plants and bushes.  We got about six watermelons.  We picked the first one a month ago and unfortunately it was too early and completely white inside.  After a couple more weeks we picked the second and it was barely pink in the center -- still too early.  Rick's sister and her family were in town that day and stopped in for a visit.  My brother in law said that you could tell it was ripe when the little curly tendril near the end of the melon dries out.  The Internet also said it is ripe if the belly where it was sitting looked yellow instead of white.  Today I saw those two signals and went and cut out a little triangle to see if it was ripe and it was.  So we all enjoyed watermelon from our "garden."  Janelle was so excited that her little plant actually grew (we haven't had much success in that area).  I didn't get a picture of today's watermelon but did take one of the first one (which wasn't ripe yet).  

After we did as much yard work as we could handle in one day the kids all took off to friend's houses.  Rick spent some time searching for a car on the Internet.  Rick does a lot of shopping on the Internet and that is how we found a couple of our other cars.  He found one this past weekend that seemed like a great deal.  He was interested and ready to purchase it but then started to have a funny feeling about it and did some checking around.  We finally decided that it was a scam and reported the seller on the site he was advertising from.   

For the past month we only have one car (our big red van).  It has worked out okay so far because Rick just rides his scooter to work and I take the van.  But I would still like to get a car as soon as possible.  When we sold our mini-van, we purchased an inexpensive older car to use until Rick could find a CNG car that he liked.  But he has never been able to find one in our price range. They are really hard to find right now and are expensive.  That car got us through for a few months but then it started becoming unreliable and so we decided to list it on the car auction.  It still hasn't sold and so we might spend the money to get it fixed so that we can either keep using it or sell it.

I want to find a car soon -- especially since Janika will be driving in a few months too.  I want a nice, reliable car.  I don't really care what kind or even what it looks like too much as long as it is reliable, safe, clean, has good gas mileage, and is nice to drive!  (And a strong AC of course!)  We are looking for a used car that is just a few years old and not too many miles on it already.  So if any of you hear of a good car for sale let us know!

Tonight I fixed meatloaf and cheesy potatoes for dinner along with green salad and corn on the cob.  Then we had a "cleaning the basement" project in order to prepare for caroler practice which starts tomorrow.  I also swept out the garage and set up a table in there so that we can put some of the bins of toys out there since Rick doesn't want all of the toys cluttering up the basement during caroler season.   Then Elder Lee taught a lesson on the plan of salvation.  His mom had sent him a cute little "Plan of Salvation" puzzle and he purchased a cute picture book from Seagull book on the Plan of Salvation.  He was so excited to try out them both out on our kids!  He also brought an apple pie that he had made.  Great job, Elder Lee!