Isaiah 7.17 : Updates, etc.

We got on the road at 11:30 yesterday which was pretty good for us. There was a lot of rain on the drive again, but we powered through at slower speeds and eventually made it to my cousin Angie's in Coppell where we're staying. Isaiah gets to see his older second cousin Karsten who was apparently so happy to see us he decided that clothes were just too much for him so he spent much of the evening running around naked. It was pretty amusing. I don't think Isaiah knew what was going on though, he just kept watching with a puzzled look on his face. Again we had problems getting him to bed. I'm thinking he was sleeping so much in the car these last few days and stuck in the car seat when he's awake that he has all this pent up energy that he needs to get out and it took until 11pm last night, plus he woke up at 2:30 for an hour. This morning we woke up to some horrible screams and we thought something really bad happened. As it turns out it wasn't so...

Well there is good news on the car front. The Toyota is alive again and hopefully going to last another 6+ months. I'll tell you how we got it fixed and the great deal we got on the price of the repairs further down the post. This whole weekend was full of stress around the car, looking for a potential new(er) car, most of the time with Isaiah in tow. It was a little cumbersome switching out the car seat for each and every test drive we took, but it was really great to get an understanding of how much more room some of the vehicles have. If we had to get a newer car this month we probably would've tried to pick up a year or two used Hyundai Sante Fe mini SUV. I was surprised with how nice it drove and looked inside and it had a ton of great features (like a V6, sunroof and heated seats for our eventual trips up north) for under $17,000. So when we do have a bit more money, and I have a full time job again, we will probably try to pick one up. As for the Toyota, on a w...

Well the death watch is on for the Toyota. We've had a mystery engine light on and off for about a month now that only would say there was a generic problem with the emissions system. Today they finally figured out the exact problem, a little charcoal filter buried deep inside the engine compartment. Normally its a $550 repair but the mechanic feels that it could potentially cost more than the car is worth because of how rusted out the bolts are under the car (it was a northern car for the first 9 years of its life and saw a ton of ice, snow and road salt) He's worried that since its so buried in the compartment that when he tries to remove bolts that they're going to snap which means they have to bore out the old ones which is tons of time in labor, and probably requires you to take more items out because you need better access to tap and drill, which could cause a domino effect of broken bolts and the like which is why it could cost so much. So here's the big is...