Dead Buick And Home Ec

Yesterday was somewhat of a stressful day. We had already made an appointment for the van to go get checked out by our mechanic... But on the way to work in the morning the car (Buick) started dying... It had been acting kind of funny and not wanting to keep a full charge on the battery, making Colin think the alternator was going bad. Well, on the way to work everything started to shut down... The blinkers stopped working, the lights were going dim and it was acting as if it was going to die. He turned around to come home and made it back, as the car died, right in front of our house never to run again... It has went to Buick heaven...Or maybe the other way (?)... Who knows? We had it towed to United Car Care where Jim (Our faithful mechanic) could tell us what was going on with both vehicles... We left both vehicles with him. He later called to tell us the sad news about the death of the Buick. He said it was time to move on, it would cost more to fix it than it was worth... He also let us know that the van was soon to follow... It is strolling down death row. He will fix it enough to get us around town for awhile but it has had it's last big trip. As dreary as this may sound, we have been truly blessed with good vehicles for several years without much major work to be done... It's just a bummer it had to happen all at once. I won't miss the Buick but I will miss the Van... We have had some great times with that Big Red Bus. So, now we are in the car/van shopping mode. It will be awhile before we decide on one... Unless a miracle jumps out and bites us on the nose. We want to buy the RIGHT one. We had a good prayer with the kids and believe that God will direct us to the perfect van for us. We will get a minivan to replace the Buick. I am thankful for little car repairs in our past and an honest mechanic.


SO.... Since we were stranded at home today... (Colin had to drive Grandma Bunny's van to work)... We made the best of it and had a MAJOR Home Ec Day. Tommy forgot his school books in the van so no one else wanted to do their school. So we started off with making pretzels...

Finished product... They were delicious!

Next time we will add jalapenos.

Next we decided to try candied apples...

Megan was our only casualty... I told them to be

extremely careful because this candies stuff

was a lot hotter than the caramel we made a couple

weeks ago... Unfortunately Megan found that out

first hand... She also burned herself when we did

the carameled apples too.

Finished product...

Looks may deceive you...

These apples were a flop! I didn't have a candy

thermometer so the candy didn't get to the right

temp... They didn't harden correctly and it stuck

to your teeth... I mean it REALLY stuck to your

teeth... It could pull a filling right out. We soaked

the apples to get the candy off and we will make

cinnamon apples out of them instead... I'm just

waiting for the recipe from Grandma Bunny.

Next... We finally made some Chili Colorado...

I brought a huge bag of chiles home from Hatch when we were there in April. I even brought chiles home to my mechanic and he's already made this dish... Well, we did it today. It's HOT! I guess I should have NOT put ALL the seeds in the pot... (?) It's good!

That's our Home Ec day... Oh and we did cleaning too :-)

It's been a productive day!