some new things...

We are getting a new (new to us, anyway!) vehicle! Now you know how much I love our minivan, despite it's troubles, but it's getting on in age, 2008, almost 160 thousand miles, and well, we drive a lot! So...a 2019 Mitsubishi is coming our way. We bought it online without test driving it, can you believe it? Life is strange these days, with no-contact solutions to mitigate spread of certain viruses. To be fair, there have been these ways of vehicle commerce for a while now, before Covid, but it just makes more sense now. When you express buy, you do not get the pleasure of throwing out low ball offers and going back and forth while the salesperson pretends to run it by his boss. You just click "buy this vehicle", and pay for it. Maybe I'm wrong, and lots of other people have given lower offers and gotten better deals! But you know me, I googled the heck out of local prices and this was a good deal. It has only 7 thousand miles on it. It has leather seats and lots of bells and whistles, 4-wheel drive, and woo-hoo, third row seating, where some lucky kids get to smush in, so it seats seven. Of course a new minivan would have been nice, but with the snowy winters we get, 4 wheel drive will be sweet, and most minivans are front wheel drive, except for the Toyota Sienna, it's AWD. But too pricey.

We'll probably pick it up today, so magical. Back in the day, you had to go to motor vehicles yourself, now you just pay and they do it all, add it to the insurance and everything.

Yesterday, Abigail and I went on a little adventure to buy two balance bikes on Facebook Marketplace. They were two for $35. I looked them up, and wow, new they are pricey. Wulf is a bit too small for them now, but he's growing fast!


And new: our pool has a hole in the liner! I had suspected, the water level goes down more quickly than just evaporation, and sure enough, I found a gash where the old ladder had been. dang it. We're going to get a few pairs of good goggles, so Paul and maybe Jonathan can go down there and fix it up. I feel like I love the pool too much, and sort of knew something like this would happen. I just hope we can repair it...

Also new: Sam and Grace and little Grant left, it's so quiet here. He's such a joy, always so happy, wakes up in the morning all spunky and interested in everything...they're back in Virginia.

He helped me make popcorn...oooh, stovetop popcorn in coconut oil, with butter and salt...

Emily and Margaret with Wulf, and Evelyn came for dinner last night. We had hot sausages and burgers grilled by Paul, sweet corn, salad, watermelon and sweet cherries. Then, a dip in the pool. Adrian and Jonathan came home from a friend's house and joined us.

Our week at camp in the Adirondacks is coming up, yay! We can't use the boat this year, sadly. It was Paul's dad's boat, and now it belongs to his brother, and well, his brother happens to be planning to use it while we would like it for the cabin. We do have kayaks, and the camp is equipped with a canoe and a rowboat. Adrian is trying to borrow a boat from a friend, however...so we'll see. (I would definitely pay the friend). Or, we can rent one for a few days.

First world probs, even though you can't say that anymore, because it's a direct connotation that there are indeed Third World countries, which is now an insult.

Oh well. It's a glorious summer day, and there is much to do...