Happy Labor Day

Yes, fall is my favorite season; however, I'm not quite ready for it this year.  Summer just flew by especially with all the rain and cooler weather that fell upon us almost daily in May and June. 

Here is a  picture of a mammoth sunflower I planted in June.  Now if I can just have a whole backyard of these sunflowers and other wildflowers.  Instead we'll probably end up having a golf course behind us...lol.  BTW, that sunflower is taller than Soph.

Soph really likes Kindergarten and likes her teacher, Mrs. Westover, a lot.  Heck, I even like Mrs. Westover.  She's a very nice, soft spoken, but stern teacher placing a lot of emphasis on reading.  Based on previous experience, she has seen great strides amongst kids reading abilities when parents read to their child every day versus the ones that didn't.  I read to Soph every night, if not several times throughout the day.  For every 10 mins of reading, Soph colors in an apple for each day during the month of September.  Once all the apples are colored in, she can hand in her "colored apples" to her teacher.  This is an on-going assignment until the end of school.

Mrs. Westover's way of discipline is something I never heard of; she uses the marble method.  She said when kids hear that marble drop in the jar...uh, oh.... it's a sound kids don't like to hear.  They know they better shape-up, wise-up, otherwise parents will be receiving a phone call.  Soph's a pretty well-behaved child and very mature for her age, so I'm not too worried about it.  

She looks forward to school every day and wishes she could go even on the weekends.  I can already see she is very interested in how everything works, including the human body.  She saw a human body model at Barnes and Noble and immediately wanted it....NOT the barbie dolls, not anything one might think a 5 year old little girl would be interested in.  From the time she was a baby, I can recall she showed definite preferences and was quite willful.  She knows what she likes and what she doesn't and is still quite willful even to this day.  However, she isn't very noisy about expressing her wants unless she wants it badly.  So I broke down and got her the model human body even though it was geared for 8+ year olds.  She absolutely luvs it!    

If I had to point out one of Soph's strengths, it would definitely have to be her knack to memorize.  She has excellent memory, memorizing all her favorite shows, commercials, books, etc.  I find it quite humorous and amazing.

Hubby is home for this long weekend laboring around the house and work as usual.  He's also enjoying his new car we got a couple of weeks ago.  It's a beautiful bluish, gray sedan that has a lot of cool features.  We had our car search narrowed down to one of three Mini JCW's and an R32.......BUT....... I received in the mail an outstanding, smokin', sweet deal for the BMW 328 iX. ....almost too good to be true....so, we thought....surprise, surprise!!  Even though the BMW is more expensive than my Tiguan, payment wise it's cheaper than my Tiguan (same terms and all).  I'm beginning to believe my.....ahh, never mind :o)

Enjoy your long Labor Day weekend!

A Happy Cinqo de Mayo

Here's my new Jetta shirt, thanks to Ben from Volkswagen SouthTowne in Draper.  I can't believe he actually remembered.  Ben told me to wear it often for the publicity.  

You know now that I'm thinking about it, we've always received something nice for almost every car we've purchased.  All you have to do is ask; they'll let you know if they can or cannot, or most likely IF they want to.  Even Sophie got a cute bear from BMW.  The bear's name is Mikey, named after the salesperson who sold us several cars.

An Ordinary Day

I took my car in to have bluetooth installed.  Ben, our sales guy is quite concerned we're not going to give him all "10's" on the performance evaluation survey.  Even if he gets one 9, he will not get his $100 bonus.  What a drag!!  He doesn't have anything to worry about.... he want's all "10's" and I want the VW 3/4 sleeve baseball shirt I've had my eyes set on since this whole car buying event began.  I should have my shirt on Cinco de Mayo.  So all is cool....wink, wink.  Actually, whether or not I get that shirt Ben was absolutely fantastic, very helpful and if there's anyone in Draper, Utah looking to buy a Volkswagen, ask for Ben.

I picked up my new readers today.  Thanks to Kate Spade, these glasses don't make me look too middle age.  More importantly, I'm so amazed the difference.  I could see fine before, but now my vision is really crisp.  I have them on as I'm sitting here writing this blog entry.  I feel a little more professor"ish."

When I made Sophie's  dentist appointment, I got to speak with Dr. Branton.  He said they're going to "wiggle" her baby tooth very hard so that the permanent tooth behind can come in and move forward and eventually straighten out (I hope).  If her tooth would have come in from below, it would have pushed her baby tooth out instead.  I think Sophie is having second  thoughts about the Dentist being a fun place to visit.  Dr. Branton assured me she won't feel anything; it's totally different compared to a wisdom tooth being pulled.

Tiguan named "Best Crossover"

Today, was the first day we took our new car out since we bought it 2 weeks ago.  It was a beautiful day, with temperatures in the upper 60's.  The snow has just about melted away where we live. 

I'm completely satisfied and happy with my new crossover; Sophie loves it too.....it plays her favorite music :o)  And she loves the panoramic power-sliding sunroof as it lets in 4X the light compared to other sunroofs.  

This week I'm taking my car in to get bluetooth installed.  It's one of those things, once you've had it, it's hard to go with anything else.   Thanks to my hubby we got it for free....Shh! don't tell anyone.

Our White Tiger Iguana

This is what we woke up to yesterday morning. There's about 3 feet of snow.  

Thank goodness, Vince returned yesterday and could use the snow thrower.  I wonder what happened to Spring?  Oh, well, it didn't prevent us from staying in the house.  On our way down the mountain, I took a picture of the low clouds as they appeared to be at arm's reach.  And then you could see the prettiest milky powder blue in the distance.

We went to Volkswagen for a quick 10 min look-see at the new CC's and SUV's.  The person we were working with..... I kid you not..... looked, talked, and acted like Vincent's nephew Alain.  It was really weird.  Anyway, after 6 to 7 hours later I saw written "you win."  We got a very, very, very good deal on the SEL 4Motion (thanks to my hubby).

I had the hardest time remembering the name "Tiguan" until I was told it's a hybrid of the German words Tiger ("tiger") and Leguan ("iguana").  It's white with black interior and fully loaded; it has everything that's important to me to include heated seats which my current car does not have.   I asked Sophie if she likes the new car and she said she likes the car we currently own because it has all her favorite songs; well, this is a pretty easy fix, I'll just change the station to 101.9 The End.  I'm sure she's going to love this car as it has a huge sunroof....that's almost like being in a convertible.

19 Cars In 13 Years

Yes, Sophie's face says it all.  

Looking at cars is not what she considers her idea of fun for a Saturday afternoon ....unless, the car is a convertible.  She loves convertibles.   I didn't know a 5 year old girly girl could be fascinated with cars at such a young age.   Overall, she was a very good girl and kept asking me, "Momma, am I being a good girl; don't you think I'm being a good girl; look Momma I'm being a good girl."

I was just thinking of all the cars we've had the past 13 years.  Between Vince and me our next car will make car number 19.  Do you think we're into cars?  

Well, we looked at three different sedans and have narrowed it down to three.  Luckily, we do not have to make a decision until July.  

I have to admit, I always feel sorry for these car salesmen; they do not have a clue what they're getting themselves into with Vince as a customer.  It's during these times, he makes a lot of money for us in a matter of a couple of hours.  He seems to have a knack on how much to push without coming across as being absurd or parsimonious.  We've even been lucky where we actually made money off one of our cars; however,  I definitely do not see this happening any time soon with the current state of our economy.