If you have a 2 year old, or have had one, this isn't news to you, but we now have zero ornaments on the lower 1/2 of our Christmas tree. I know some of them have been relocated to the upper 1/2 of the tree, which now is very top heavy and I'm sure illegal in several states, but I fear that most are just plain missing. I'm guessing we will find the stash sometime in June and I will have to get the Christmas boxes back down from the attic so we can put them away.



I will be purchasing my own present on Tuesday, but I'm not that thrilled about it. The car I drive back and forth to work, is done. We are buying a new Ford Focus. Why new you might ask? I'm not convinced that buying new is the best plan, maybe it would be smarter to buy a used car, but I'm so tired of dealing with repair shops, not trusting what they are telling me, and as soon as I get it home something else breaks. That is recent history with, what we affectionately call, the red car. We don't have a fancy name, like ocho, but red car has worked well for us. Once the boys learned their colors, we could tell them which car to get in using just the color and they would get it correct 50% of the time. I can say it all I want, they only listen when they want. We had a really bad experience with a local dealership regarding some warranty work on both of our cars. Now, I don't want to name names (Stew Hansen's Dodge of 12103 Hickman, Des Moines Iowa 50323), but lets just say the initials are SH. We had an issue with our blue car, from the day we bought it, that they tried to fix on several occasions. It only happened when it was cold, so I only complained in the winter, which helped make the issue with SH worse later. It was the power slider door on our mini van. It wouldn't work when it was cold, so when I was in for something, I'd have them look at it. They would "fix" it and it worked thru the summer and then it wouldn't work again. I'd take it in the next winter, some thing, they would "fix" it and then it would quit working the next winter. I took it in to have an oil change awhile back and told them it wasn't working again. Of course, the warranty is over, so now they tell me the motor needs to be replaced, $800. I explained to the guy the history I just spelled out above, but he wasn't impressed. He told me to call the service manager, which Marcy did while I was in Houston. Then, I called them about the red car, which we just had in but was making a new noise. They looked at it and of course it now had a new repair it needed that would put the total amount fixed higher than the value of the car, so we opted not to fix the new sound. Marcy called the service manager and they must have had quite the conversation, because he called me next and said they would fix the van door for free. He new he had lost a customer, but he tried. I did take the van in for them to "fix" the van door, so I'll let you know next winter if it took. Too bad for them. Since we had to buy a new car, we probably would have bought a new Caravan, but I don't trust them at all. I had the same thing happen with the red car, drivers side windshield washer fluid, and my boss said he had the same thing happen to him at this place. I'm glad to be done with them, now we'll see if this new place has a clue in regards to service. The car is pretty cool, as cool as a small box on wheels can be, but the features it has should be fun. I'll take a picture on Tuesday and post it. So as to not confuse the kids, we are getting another red car. I'm not sure we can fit all three kids and their car seats in this thing, but it has a decent sized truck, so it will do.