So much seems to have happened in such a short time, once again, with nary a knitting stitch involved. Zack left early, early last Sunday morning for 3-1/2 weeks at sleepaway camp. It's his 3rd summer there, with all the same guys in his cabin, so I'm not terribly worried about him having a good
time. But, I do miss him.
It is the same camp where Anna had been for the previous 3 weeks, and where she was going to be
working for the rest of the summer, as one of 2 nannies for the director's kids: a 4-mo. old and a
2-year old. A job with the potential for lots of fun, but also a very demanding job. Anna is GREAT with kids, but not as great dealing with stressful situations and relationships in a calm and straightforward manner, and the work was very demanding. She just kept getting progressively more frustrated and exhausted with each day. Without really thinking through it all, she told her employers on Tuesday that she didn't think she was going to make it through the rest of the summer. Well, within an hour, she was in her car, all packed up and on her way back to Buffalo.
In the meantime, though, Rick and J-Daughter and I had planned a quickie get-away for the 3 of us to Toronto! We invited her to join us, but Anna declined and stayed at home with the dog while we drove to Toronto on Thursday, saw Blue Man Group (which was AWESOME!), stayed overnight, visited the Hockey Hall of Fame (okay, I got bored after a while, I admit it) and drove home late Friday afternoon.
As for Anna, she has a line on some part-time work, at the adoption agency where she worked in during high school and all last summer, and she's registered for a class for the last summer session at UB.
And now... The Big News: After weeks of searching for the perfect used Honda Odyssey (it
doesn't exist) or Toyota Sienna (very, very hard to find, in the model with all the bells and whistles
that I wanted), we bought a brand-new Hyundai Entourage the other night! With all the bells and whistles! (Seriously, what do I need a DVD player for? But it comes with the package that has the leather seats and the moonroof and the upgraded sound system, all of which I DID want.) My husband
was even sweet enough to take Wednesday and drive down with me to a Toyota dealership in Bradford, PA to check out a used Sienna that looked good online. Guess what? It looked like crap and smelled bad. I knew in 1/8 of a second that I didn't want that car. At least it wasn't a total waste of time. It was just nice to be together without work or kids for a few hours, and we had a lovely dinner in a Middle-Eastern cafe in Ellicottville on the way home.
As for the car, it just so happened that my brother-in-law, who is a total car enthusiast, had
told us the day before that the new Hyundai minivan, which they call the Entourage, had recently been released and was receiving rave reviews and excellent predictions. Better in the most recent safety tests than any other minivan on the market, and priced way less than the Honda or the Toyota for the same "stuff." I read everything I could find on the internet, and it all seemed to check out. So, wave to me in my new gold minivan from Northtown Hyundai! (And forgive me for bragging... I haven't gotten a new car in 10 years, and I totally, totally, totally expected to be buying used. This was really a surprise.)
Congratulations! That's so exciting!
Posted by: Renee | July 01, 2006 at 11:45 PM