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Two of ‘em. Bottom center. Look out Mommy nipples! Yeow!

In not unrelated news, Ronan is eating food like a champ. He gets extremely grumpy when you don’t let HIM feed HIMSELF, though. GRUMPY!

Ronan learned to blow raspberries, having worked on it for days and days. They have now become a sign of anger and frustration. Waaah! Pbbbpbpbpbpttttt! Waaah! Too bad. It was more fun when he just did ‘em for fun. (He still will. Sometimes.)

Torlis won a free week of Karate lessons last summer at New West Fest. She’s been doing it this week, and is having a ball. Tomorrow we’re going to Karate instead of music class.

When the sensei was quizzing the students on the archetypal animals of Karate (Tiger, Crane, etc.), Torlis jumped in to point out that SHE was a BAT! Sensei was very supportive. What else can you expect from a gaijin? (Sensei is also a gaijin, but he punches pretty good)

Nik: We could get it at Walmart

Torlis: I heard you can save money and live better, there.

Lots of new pictures in the photo gallery. Click PHOTOS up top to see ‘em.

We got a Kia Sedona minivan. Twice.

See, it had problems. Specifically, a bad CV boot, and a massive oil leak — both discovered in the grace period during which we had a post-facto pre-purchase inspection. So we took it to Kia (it’s under warranty) to get it fixed. They said they did. A second inspection revealed they’d done no such thing.

…Back to Longmont Ford to return the car while we still could!

Ford fixed it (well Longmont Kia did, actually), so we re-bought it, and all was well.

No.

Mysterious lights flickered on, then vanished minutes or hours later. Check Engine… E-brake…

Back to Kia.

No problems. “Must have been cold weather.” could be, we’d just had a foot of snow. But no, there’s the lights! “Oh, you meant THOSE lights! We’ll fix that!”

Phew! Kia back at home, no more lights!

Meanwhile…

Took the Subaru in for an oil change and a Get It Prepped for Commuting once-over.

Out favorite mechanic brings bad news: “You need a new head gasket. Common problem, but we’ll have to pull out the engine. $1,500, tops.”

OK, we say…

“This is Corey at Ft. Collins auto. While we’ve got the engine out we’ll do your timing belt, too. We’re also going to need to send it to the machine shop. $2,000 tops!”

Did I mention we needed tires, too? Yeah, alignment is a bit off and we hadn’t rotated them enough.

“Hey, Corey again. Your clutch is worn out, and you’ll save a bundle if we replace it while the engine’s out. 2,600 — tops!”

Okay… That’s fine. It’ll be worth it.

“This is Corey… I’m sorry I’m calling again, but your CV joint is messed up and we might want to replace it…”

I didn’t ask for the total. I just picked up the car and paid the man.

All in all, this is a drop in the bucket if we can get a reasonably trouble free 100,000 miles or so out of these two cars. Here’s hoping!

We are now the proud owners of… a minivan.

This is shaking up our self-image somewhat. We’re not MINIVAN PEOPLE! Our kids don’t even PLAY soccer!

Things we learned:

Longmont Ford, good. Nice reasonable people.

Peak Kia, bad. Very bad. We hates them.

And we now know about “Salvage Titles” (we did not buy one)

If you care, the car is a 2006 Kia Sedona. Very comfy.