Toddlers & Tadpoles

About a week or so ago, my younger niece, her boyfriend, and almost 3 year-old daughter came for a visit from Idaho.

Bella, my niece's daughter goes full tilt most of the time, like any normal toddler.  The last time she visited my parents' place, she was fascinated with the piano, and spent most of her time playing on it.  This time when she got to their house, it was no different.  She remembered the piano and made a beeline for it as soon as she was in the door.

After a little bit, she decided to check other things out, and looked out to see birds on the porch. The birds would swoop down, hop under the bushes and disappear.  Bella wanted to know where they were, so I told her they were probably playing hide and seek.  After that, every time she'd see a bird, and it would disappear, she'd yell, "seek, seek, birdy, seek!"  When they'd come out, she'd yell, "hide birdies!"

During all this a chipmunk decided to show up.  Bella didn't know what it was, but figured it was playing hide and seek with the birds.  I told her it was a chipmunk, and asked if she could say that.  Well, she did her best, for her age, and me, well, I'll never see a "chipmunk" ever again; instead, they will forever more be known as "chigga-munks".

If that weren't enough, a deer decided to show up also.  Bella decided she needed to be on the porch for a better look; so out we went.  For about 5 minutes or so, Bella and the deer just watched each other, then, they evidently both got bored with staring, because the deer wandered off, and Bella was ready to go in the house.

After that, it was back in the house and the piano.  Sometime during the day, my mom had given Bella two Disney books about cats and dogs.  Bella went to the piano with her books and started singing about them.  My son, Josh, happened to have his camera ready, and shot the cutest video of Bella playing and singing; until she noticed he was there!   What a fun day we had!

A few days later, Josh noticed that my parents' waterfall pool had tadpoles in it.  Not surprising, since he'd already discovered at least one frog there about a month ago.  Evidently there were at least two, since there's plenty of tadpoles now!

Ever the wildlife photographer, Josh decided he needed at least a picture of the tadpoles, and proceeded to try and get some good shots.  He then decided to put the lens of his camera into the pond and try videotaping the tadpoles.  He got a pretty good video of it, and fortunately didn't hurt his camera!

It's going to be fun when all these little tadpoles grow up to be froggies!  It's just too bad we didn't notice them when Bella was here; I'm sure she'd have loved them!

It's A Love Thing

(Today's word will be in ALL CAPS, BOLD, ITALIC, and STRIKETHROUGH.)

Over the years I've had various cars, some I've liked, at least one I absolutely hated, and a handful I've loved. My current car, a 2000 Chevy Tracker I bought nine years ago is one of the ones I love.

Granted, the car has had it's share of issues. Over the years I've had to replace the starter, the radiator, and the timing chain. That list doesn't count the times it was crashed into by a hit and run driver, (three months after I got the car), and when a deer ran into my car, (yes, it ran in to me, not me into it). I had to replace the driver's side door and the hood; not pretty.

The timing chain had been the most recent problem, in the past year; until a couple weeks ago. Went to start my car one morning; it tried, then stopped. Everything the car did was the same as the last time the timing chain broke.

Woke Josh, (my son), up, and he checked what he could; and agreed, it was probably the timing chain.

Josh has a friend, Zac, who's a certified auto technician, who said he'd come up and help Josh fix my Tracker; it would help save on the cost of getting the car fixed. Josh is great at working on cars; for a big project though, he wanted Zac there also.

So, during the next week, between giving me rides to work and home, Josh got all the parts and equipment needed to fix a timing chain; thankfully it was all refundable.

When Zac first came up, he listened and checked and also thought it was the timing chain, until they pulled what needed to be pulled out of the car, and the chain was fine.

That's how the weekend started; it only went on from there. At first both guys were glad it wasn't the timing chain, it was a much easier problem to fix; or so they thought.

Long story short, anything and everything that could go wrong with fixing my car did. Simple things were made complicated by how the car is put together. It seems Chevy doesn't make it easy for anyone to work on their own car. It was crazy, to say the least.

As I said earlier, Zac is a certified auto technician, and even he was getting frustrated with my car. At one point he mentioned that now he knew why his boss said don't bring my Tracker to the shop; the guy hates them.

Eventually my car was fixed, though it now has two new nicknames. Well, it really only has one that Josh and Zac call it; however, that's not printable here, so the "nicer" name they've dubbed my Tracker is TECHBREAKER, because it tested even Zac's skills at auto repair.

Needless to say, both guys really do hate my car at this point. Me? What can I say? I still love my car, regardless of all that it's been through and put us through; and I plan on keeping it quite awhile longer.