Plant a tree, Grow a Forester

After a rough start to the month of February because of Holly's car problems, Holly and I started to look for a new car on various websites. To make the situation worse, Rusty (my Jetta) got some bad news. The week before I went to Utah, I brought my Jetta in for an oil change. The guys at the shop, who I trust a lot because of the help they gave me on Holly's car, recommended that I start to shop for a new car because the rust on my Jetta was starting to eat away at the frame of my car. They didn't say how long but said that the rust will eventually get bad enough to break the frame which would be the end for Rusty. Not good. This kicked Holly and I into high gear on the car search. We knew we wanted to buy an import car were unsure of which make. We looked all over and found a good deal on a 1999 Subaru Forester but the car was in Madison (70 miles away). We arranged to meet up with the guy selling it on a Sunday. On the way there, we were about half way, we got a flat tire on Rusty. I was cranky! We decided not to push our luck on the spare so we decided we would have to try again. Holly had class the next day so I drove up there by myself and I made it this time. After driving the car and looking it over I decided that it would be a good buy so we bought it by putting money down until I could come back with Holly the next day. The car was listed at $4,300 and we bought it for $3,900 which was about the most I wanted to pay so pretty good deal. 

Here is our new car, 1999 Subaru Forester L. It's green (must be my color for cars) and is all-wheel drive.

 

Plus its a manual transmission. I really like driving stick cars and got lucky this one has it. Not a requirement but an added bonus for me anyways.

The odometer reads 102662. That is not bad for a car that is 11 years old. The car was originally owned in New York and now lives in Milwaukee!

All nice and clean on the inside. Lets keep it that way!

Here is the back. Big hatch back door will make it easy for trips to and from Minnesota and for when we move home in the future.

Look at all that trunk space plus the seats fold down flat. I like the floor mat in the trunk. It will make it easy to clean if the trunk does get dirty.

The only little bit of rust on the car. Hopefully it doesn't get any worse and turn out like Rusty. Keep your fingers crossed.

The front of the car looks pretty awesome in my opinion. I like the fog lights at the bottom. No hood scoop like snowflake has.

I brought the car to the shop I have been going to for them to do a inspection of it last Wednesday. I think we got pretty lucky that we bought the car from a honest guy that said things had been fixed without any paper work saying so. They did an inspection of it and found no major problems, just a few small maintenance things like breaks and struts. No real engine issues. I made sure to have them check for a new head gasket because I was told that was replaced and it had been. Thank you for there still being honest and trustworthy people like the guy we bought it from. It was the only car we went to look at and ended up buying it we liked it and more importantly I trusted the guy when he said things that had been fixed.

We have officially owned the car for 3 weeks now. The reason that it has taken me so long to post is because until today it really hasn't felt like our car. When we bought the car, the guy we bought the car from took the plates off of it. The reason why is because in Wisconsin plates are registered to the person instead of the car like in Minnesota. He planned on putting them on his next car. Kind of confusing. I didn't know which state to register it in and I needed to get official plates from somewhere. For the time being it had the plates from Holly's old car but we didn't drive it anywhere but home from Madison. I decided to register it in Minnesota because it was cheaper and then we wouldn't have to re-register when we moved back. Also, tabs are more expensive here along with the fact you need to do emissions tests every year or two. To register it in MN, I would have to make a special trip home to do it. Instead I mailed the Wisconsin Title to my parents and they registered the car in their name for us so we could have Minnesota Plates. This is kind of legal for us because Holly will be driving it for a while and she is a student and they have exceptions to the law for students, lucky us.

Here are the plates. I just got them in the mail today from my parents. The car is officially ours now. It feels really good to finally have the title/plates issue taken care of and knowing after the inspection that we really did find a good car with no issues. Still working on a name for it. Any suggestions? Can't wait to show it off. Maybe around Easter...

UTAH!!!!!!! Beware... its a long one.

At the beginning of March, Mom, Dad and I went to Utah to visit Carolyn and Chris in Park City the first week of March. It really has become a yearly thing to go visit them. Every trip is different and awesome in its own way. It was my sixth trip out to visit Utah and it was my parents fifth trip. Although we have all been there so many times it is still something we enjoy to do. It was sad that Sharon was unable to join us, she was busy with teaching and had just went to New Orleans the week before we went. I flew out of Milwaukee while my parents flew from home. We both had short layovers in Denver and ended up getting to Salt Lake just minutes after one another. We landed on Wednesday. Carolyn and Chris both had to work that day but after a day of flying, it was kind of enjoyable to have a relaxing day in their apartment to read books and watch TV on vacation. That night we made No Name Steaks because they are one of Carolyn and Chris's favorites from home which had to be packed along with the snowboard bag. This put the snowboard bag over 50lbs at check in and Dad had to carry one boot around the airport so they didn't have to pay extra. We also made kale chips which I had never had kale and really enjoyed trying something new. Carolyn's friend Jeff came over and we got to chat about nursing because he is working on becoming a nurse just like Holly.

The next day Chris had to work and Carolyn worked a few hours at Starbucks. Carolyn had been awesome again and got us two Gold Passes from her friends at USSA. This is part of the reason we can continue to make trips to visit her. It allows us to get free passes to any resort. Mom, Dad and I spent the day at Park City Mountain Resort. It isn't my favorite resort because it is such a touristy kind of place and is always packed. It snowed that morning for about 2 hours. This picture is proof that Mom was in fresh powder. It was snowing so much you could hardly see and you were covered in snow by the time you got up the chair lift. Mom and Dad both admitted that if the snow would have kept up, it would have been a short day on the mountain. Luckily it stopped snowing around noon and the sun came out just minutes later.

After Carolyn was done at Starbucks, she came to join us. This is one of Mom's favorite parts of PCMR, the town lift. It is something that she does every time we are there. It is a relaxing trip down on the chairlift over looking downtown streets of Park City.

See, look how happy she is and Dad went along for the ride.

After a long day at PCMR, another thing that Mom likes to do is go to the recycling center in Park City. They don't have regular recycling pick up in the city so you have to take it to the recycling center and sort all of it yourself. It is really awesome to see how many people actually do it instead of being lazy. We stopped at Starbucks to get their cardboard that they had from the order they received. Dad was cranky because we had to try to do it in one trip instead of bringing some and coming back for the rest. We all ended up with boxes on our laps.

Surprisingly, the snow started back up while we were at the recycling center. This was Mom and I after we finished sorting plastics. We all got to do our part for the planet!

That night we went to Maxwell's for pizza. It has become one of Carolyn and Chris's favorite Pizza places in town. They have New York style pizza. I think her favorite is still Broadway Pizza back at home though.

After pizza we went to watch Chris play hockey. He plays in a league on Thursday nights. They are no professionals but it was still fun to watch. It made me want to play. Here Chris's cheering squad.

And here is Chris, #99. His team lost and Chris didn't score any goals but he had a few shots on goal and played a lot better than some other guys on his team. Mom and Carolyn really like to watch the woman on his team that is 70 years old. Mom should try and play.

The next day, Carolyn and Chris had the day off of work. We decided to get out of town and go up to Powder Mountain Resort which has become one of all of our favorite resorts. It is about a hour and a half drive away but it totally worth it every time. We got a later start on the mountain than we normally do because we got about half the way there and forgot the Gold Passes. We turned around to go get them because it would save us over $100 in lift ticket prices. Mom really enjoys the scenery there and has plenty of green runs for her that are not packed with little tourist kids like at PCMR. One reason it has become her favorite is because there is a creek running along one of the runs. It wasn't very visible this time because it was earlier in the year than in the past. She still liked it and spent most of the day with dad.

Carolyn, Chris and I went off on a different part of the mountain. It involved a little bit of a hike but was so worth it. We got to get some fresh powder, even two days after it snowed. The hike is not completely up hill and has some down sections. Not enough to complete put on your board but enough to go sledding. In order to stop you need to use your feet but then you get snow all over. For example, Chris got his beard covered in snow and looks like old man winter. 

Fresh powder is the best part of being on the mountains and totally makes any hike worth it. Carolyn hidden in the trees in this picture. That night we came home to french dip sandwiches made in the crock pot. It was something we all liked and made it enjoyable to come home to dinner already made.

The next day, we went to ___ Canyons resort. No longer containing the word "the" in its title. I was most excited for this because it is one of my favorite resorts and has made a lot of great changes to improve the resort. Carolyn started the morning snow reporting and we met up with her around lunch. We started the morning on the Orange Bubble Express lift. It has a orange bubble that you can pull down to avoid the cold and get a break from your goggles. It also has heating elements that warm your seat once you sit down.

It was awesome to have Chris along because he explained how everything works. He was like our own tour guide on the mountain.

After lunch Carolyn went on some runs with Mom and Chris and I took Dad on some more Challenging runs. It turned out to be a little too much of a change for Dad. He fell a few times on some steeper sections. Turned out we wore him out pretty quickly. We met back up with Carolyn and Mom to give Dad a rest.

Carolyn, Chris and I went off on our own for a bit. We went to an entirely new section of the mountain that just opened this year. It was called the Iron Mountain Area. A lot of fun to be on a entirely new area of the mountain. I also got to do some of the natural half pipes that are my favorite at Canyons. It is a true test to your snowboarding abilities.

After we were done for the day, we found Mom and Dad on the beach. It is the bottom of the mountain were they have some beach chairs out. Kind of a relaxing way to end your day. It was something that I noticed most about the changes. People were hanging around the resort, having drinks, socializing and listening to music. The changes that they made, changed the entire atmosphere of the resort after a day of skiing. Normally people just want to leave and now they want to hang around and have a good time. For dinner that night we went to Squatters for dinner. I got to have some of the local beers that I enjoy from previous trips. We went with Carolyn's friend Irene and her boyfriend.

The next day Chris worked. The rest of us went for a hike in the Unita Mountains. It was something we did last year and had fun except we went after a long day on the mountain. This time we went for a day by itself. Mom and Dad had snow shoes and Carolyn and I had cross country skis. We ended up parking in the wrong spot and Dad had already put his snow shoes on. We shoved him in the trunk for the short drive to the right trail head.

On the hike, Mom and Dad did really well with their snow shoes. Carolyn had a bit of work with her CC skis. I was awful with my CC skis. They were Chris's skis and didn't have enough wax on them. It made going up hill, which our whole trail ended up being, nearly impossible. I would move 20 inches forward only to slide 15 inches backwards. By the time I finally caught up to them, I WAS CRANKY!!

The whole trail we were on was up hill, which is lots of work for those not living in elevation. The reason we chose it was because it was supposed to go past a old miners cabin. The map we had was outdated and didn't provide a location of the cabin, so we just kept hiking. Eventually we would it. Not much left of it and was very hard to see because it was covered with snow. This is how deep the snow was. Mom has one pole out of the snow and the other is not even touching the bottom of it. She is standing right next to what would be the door frame to the cabin. The roof hand all caved in and you could only see some of the wood left from the cabin.

We hike a little more and found our spot for lunch. We carried in a few sandwiches and snacks and found this tree to sit on. Again another thing we had never done before on one of our trips.

 

This is the final point we got to on our hike. We never made it to our final destination and kind of glad because the map really never had it ending. We would have kept going for a very, very, long time. Mom was getting pretty tired and was ready to be done so we turned around. Going down wasn't as easy as I expected. I thought skis would have an advantage but there was really no way to stop yourself on cross country skis. Carolyn and I fell a lot and couldn't figure out any better way to go about going down other than taking off our skis. Having CC skis was pointless for me on the entire hike.

 

After the hike we had dinner at home and had Carolyn's friend Nancye over for dinner. Carolyn and Chris had been watching her cat Callie and as payment for watching Callie, Carolyn asked Nancye to bring Lefsa back from her trip to Norway. It was very good lefsa and reminded me a lot of grandma. 

The next day we all flew out. Mom and Dad's flight left four hours before mine but we both had layover in Denver. The weather got worse in Salt Lake and my flight left 50 minutes late which was the same length of my layover in Denver. I had to RUN through the Denver airport to make my flight home. I made it but it was really close. I was glad because I didn't want to spend the night in Denver. It was sad to leave Carolyn because now that I live in Milwaukee, I only get to see her a few times a year. I was really glad we went to visit her and spend time with Mom and Dad too. Thank you Mom and Dad for the trip and thank you Carolyn and Chris for your hospitality. I had a great time with everyone. Thanks Again!!!

Bye Bye Blue Belle

The car that we believed had a lot of life left in it, actually did not. The car that Holly owned was a 1997 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme. It was her grandma's car before Holly got it. That is where the name Blue Belle is from. It was a huge improvement at the time compared to Holly's old car. Blue Belle only had 45,000 miles on it and was running great.  

 Holly had received the car when she was a junior at the U of M. The car made it through a lot. It was her mode of transportation between Iowa and home during her time at Iowa State University. 

Before Blue Belle came to its end, it made quite a few trips between Milwaukee and Minnesota. My Jetta is near its end because the rust is taking over we ended up driving Blue Belle home more often even though my Jetta got better gas mileage.

 This is the route of all problems with Blue Belle...the ENGINE!!!! It really didn't start to have any problems until Holly moved home from Iowa. It started with the idle on the engine and was down hill from there. We always got the problems fixed but something new came up. When we went home for Christmas, the engine was making noise and it sounded like a belt. Brought it in and found out the transmission was the problem. They replaced the fluid and did a few other things but they said it would be going out in the future. The temporary fix made the problem go away but in February the engine started making noise again. I brought the car to the shop that I have been going to since we moved to Milwaukee. Not knowing what the problem was, I said just do a diagnostic of the car and figure out whats wrong before we make any repairs. They said that it was the rod bearing and it was starting to knock. Bad sign. Very expensive to fix and pretty much requires the engine to be replaced. The guys recommend that we don't drive it and start shopping for a new car because rod bearing will eventually fail and the engine will blow. Then the car cannot be moved.  :(

 That day we drove the car home and were completely shocked because we believed after fixing it over Christmas we had some time left. Apparently not. Blue Belle at its end only had 90,000 miles on it and everyone expected it to last longer than that. We started to shop for a new car on all different websites. We were not sure whether we should donate Blue Belle or sell it or junk it. After calling some places, we decided to junk the car. We just needed to drive it there and they would give us $350. The car made it out to the junk yard that was nearly 20 miles away. It was pretty noisy on the whole drive and I really don't know how much life it had left in it. More that everyone that I talked to expected that we would get for the car. This picture of Blue Belle in her final resting place. 

One last thing that we had to do was take the plates off. It was kind of shocking that after the car had been through so much for Holly, all we got out of it at its end was $350 and the plates. Kind of sad.

This was Holly saying her last goodbye. It was really sad for her because she had gotten the car from her grandma and the car had helped her through so much. She had driven it so many times between Iowa and Minnesota and since we moved to Milwaukee. It was really hard to just walk away from it. Blue Belle you will be missed and will always hold a place in our hearts.

Christmas Present Recieved in February

Sorry I haven't been very good at updating my blog. Stay tuned this week because there will be a few new posts coming.

For Christmas, my parents gave me a gift card that I could use to buy a new TV. I had also been saving some gift cards from the past few years for Best Buy. After combining all the gift cards and money I got for Christmas and my birthday I finally bought my new TV. I have  always wanted a nice flat screen TV, ever since I worked at Best Buy in high school. It has been a long wait. I had shopped around on prices and on brands. I found Samsung TVs to get really good reviews pretty much every where I looked. I was trying to decide between the sizes 32" and 40". I ended up going with the 40" because it might look big in our apartment now but when we move, a 32" might look small. It was totally worth it. I went to buy the TV the first weekend in February, and ended up getting it the week after because it was a sale item and they didn't have it in stock. Wasn't much of a problem.

It was really nice to actually get the TV. I think that I appreciate it more after waiting so long for one. It is something that use everyday and it was worth the extra money that I spent. 

Blizzard. Wisconsin Style.

Milwaukee just got hit with a blizzard Tuesday night. It was the second of two winter storms in just two days. One came on Monday and was just a normal winter storm. The second was something I haven't really experience, at least not in a very long time. The first storm was really small and only snowed about an inch. It came during rush hour so people were frustrated in Milwaukee, that was just the start. The second wave was predicted to start at about 3 pm on Tuesday. The wind came earlier but really the snow didn't come until about 5 and when it came it wouldn't stop. Holly and I registered for a yoga class together and Tuesday was supposed to be the first night. The class got canceled around noon. That how bad they were thinking the storm was going to be. Since there wasn't any yoga, Holly and I spent the night playing with our bunny Dexter and actually watching the show Dexter. We made pizza and spent the night indoors and that was our night. The storm was pretty violent because of the winds that came with it. The wind was blowing about 40 mph and gusts more than 60. It made the big window in our apartment rattle all night. We went to bed early because I had to work on Wednesday. That is when the problem started.

Like I said, it was the start of the problems. I woke up plenty early so I would have enough time to make it to work. That is what I thought anyways. I got all dressed almost like I was going snowboarding. I went out to my car and this is what it looked like. It wasn't covered that much with snow because of the winds. The winds drifted snow all over. I was scheduled to open and our street had not been plowed yet . We normally open at 5 am which means we have to be there at 4:30. They planned on us opening at 6 instead of 5. Not much help in my mind. It is like giving someone a penny and hoping that would make them rich. Oh well. Before calling my boss I tried to move my car. The snow on the street was over a foot and I actually got my car moving but couldn't get my small Jetta onto the street through the knee high snow.

 

This is part of the reason that our street had not been plowed. If you look closely you can see a car in the middle of the picture. It is a car that was trying to parallel park somewhere in the night and their car stopped working or it just got stuck. They just left it in the middle of the street. So DUMB. It created so many problems all day!

 

See that is where they left their car. It pretty much blocks the whole street. No plows.

This is probably the best picture I have of the "white out" conditions. The wind was blowing so much it made the snow look like it was going sideways, sometimes even upwards. Crazy. I think the only other official blizzard I was in was the Halloween Blizzard of '91. I don't remember the wind back then though.

After I tried to move my car I called my boss and said that there was no way of moving my car. He called our district manager and decide it would be in our best interest to wait to open the store until 10am. I made some coffee at home, put in a movie, and took a small nap with Holly on the couch. I got up and checked on the snow. It had stopped around 9am but that didn't mean that I could go to work. Here is a picture of some of the drifts. See the snow on the fence.

Here's Jetta (aka Rusty) Not covered with that much now but the drifts are crazy. If you look right in front of my car there is a shoveled snow pile and the adjacent one is by the tree. Across the driveway is a snow drift the height of those piles which was probably around waist high.

Here is that dumb car again. Still in the same spot at 10am which means no plow all the way through the street.

This is my car. I got lucky where I parked it because the drifts didn't really pile up around it. I didn't even have to brush it off!

This was the car behind mine. There is a pretty big difference in the drifts between our cars.

Finally a plow came by around 11am. It was not even a city plow. The father of the dumb girl who left her car in the street, owned a truck with a plow attached. He came to help her with her car and plowed part of our street. I think he owed us that. After this I had to shovel for maybe three minutes and was able to get my car out. I was lucky unlike some other people on our block who had to shovel for hours. This was around 11am when my boss called. I told him that I got my car out but my scheduled shift was supposed to be done at 1pm. Did it really make sense to go in? I could have gotten there but I was most likely the only one. He couldn't even get out of his driveway. Again he called the district manager and decided to try for noon. He called back a bit later and said we were just going to stay closed. None of the other employees could make it and at what point are you going to be spending more money then you are making. Its just coffee, people will live on without it. So we stayed closed and I got the day off. Holly already had been given Wednesday off so we stayed in the apartment all day together. 

Here is by our back door. Again, the drifts were just ridiculous.

 This is the door going to our basement garage. Not going down there this way anytime soon.

 

This is probably just the best picture of the snow drifts that I got. It goes half way up the back door to our place. 

Overall, it was a crazy storm. They reported we got about 18 inches of snow in the 3 days of the storm. That is a lot of freaking snow but combined with the winds created a mess all over Milwaukee. It was a fun experience. Also, if you were wondering, the dumb car finally got moved around 6pm on Wednesday. It meant that our block missed one whole day of plowing.