Oops

I'll be 35 years tomorrow and in my nearly 19 years of driving experience, I've prided myself on never getting a ticket or being in an accident.  Okay, so there was that one time when I was 19 and a student at AUC.  I was on my way to class and as I crept through a construction zone with slow moving traffic, I took out my notes for a test.  Next thing I know I felt a bump and sure enough, I had bumped the car in front of me.  We pulled over and I quickly inspected their car.  I didn't really see anything and then as it turned out, the ladies in it only spoke Spanish and thus we couldn't communicate.  I took that as a sign that it was my lucky day and off I went.  Funny thing about hitting Spanish people.

Fast forward 16 years and I've done it again.  This time it didn't have as good an ending.  Yesterday, late afternoon, the girls and I made a quick stop at CVS and then the Farmer's Market for some veggies.  Usually we walk to the Farmer's Market but since we had to go to CVS and it would be getting dark, we drove.  Bad decision.  It was almost completely dark when we came out and I really can't explain what happened.  I don't know if I was distracted by a deep conversation with Calleigh or if I just plain didn't look but as I backed up, I felt a big bump and much to my disgust, I had backed into a car that was parked in a space behind me.  The owner was sitting in her car and of course, she immediately hopped out.  Thankfully she seemed like a nice person from the get go because she wasn't yelling at me or anything.  As I looked at the car, the first thing I noticed was that I had hit a stinking BMW and not an old one at that.  Why couldn't it have been some jalopy??  Fortunately, nothing was dented, just scratched.  I was thinking that it wouldn't cost all that much to get fixed so I offered to just pay her for the damage and could we just leave it at that (why get the police and insurance involved)?  I offered to sign something for her and give her all my information but she decided she wanted to call the police.  I guess if I were her, I would have done the same.  But I was afraid the whole operation would take forever and I had the girls in the car - - and Calleigh was going a little bonkers over it, I might add.  She was crying and wailing about my breaking the car and why did it happen, etc.

The owner, Diana, as it turned out was really a nice lady.  She's about 50 years old and she admitted that a few months ago she had actually rear ended somebody when she was backing out of a spot at the 7-Eleven right next door to the Farmer's Market.  The police came, a very nice guy also, and while he wrote up the report, Diana and I chit chatted.  She works as a personal assistant for a "very rich lady" as she called it and loves her job.  She's from Columbia and I told her all the Columbians I know are very nice.  It's true!  During all this, Duncan came and got the girls so I didn't have to worry about them.  He also had to run home (literally, and the knee held up well) because I didn't have a copy of my insurance with me.  Before they left, Calleigh INSISTED that she inspect both our van and the BMW to see what happened.  She then told me that I should be careful when I'm driving.  Yes, thank you, Calleigh.  When all was said and done, I was the recipient of a $166 ticket for improper backing up.  I can take a driving class (which you can do on-line or something) so that the points don't go on my license but I still have to pay the fine.  Oh by the way, the damage to the van was very minimal.  You can barely see anything.

Diana called me this evening and said she got an estimate of $475 for the damage and then I'll have to pay for a rental car for two days.  Clearly, I'll just pay it rather than sending it through my insurance since I have a $500 deductible and I want to avoid my insurance rates going up anyway.  So this little "snafu" is going to cost us a few shekels.  I guess it's a good thing I've been putting in extra hours for audit :)

The funny thing, not really ha-ha funny, is that my license and registration expire tomorrow (on my b-day).  I went on-line on Thursday to renew it and it said that it would take 7-10 business days for the new documents and license to get to me.  I decided to take my chances since I didn't want to go to the license place, especially.  I figured, what can happen in a few days??  I'll probably get it a few days after my birthday at worst.  The registration had actually come yesterday and I had picked it up in the mail right before going to CVS so it was easy to pull that out for the cop.  But the license still hasn't come.  Of course, hopefully I'll just be fine showing them the proof that I've renewed it even if I don't have the actual license on me (assuming it doesn't come tomorrow and assuming I'm very unlucky enough to have to show it to anyone).  I just thought it was ironic how this happened now.

In other news, we went to Markham Woods Church on Sabbath since our church had flooding in the basement and thus, no place to have Sabbath School.  We love the kids Sabbath School there so that worked out well.  We saw quite a few other friends there who had the same idea because of the closure.  We went to go get seats for church but not one was to be found!  We turned to leave but then Calleigh got so upset and so we decided to let the girls go to the child care area.  This is a place where you can actually drop off your kids (ages 1 - 4) and they give you a pager.  The room was full of books, toys, you name it.  It was incredible.  Duncan and I then snuck into the "mother's room" and sat there.  I think we would consider going to this church instead, now that Pastor Morris is gone, but we have some beliefs that greatly differ from the pastor (we're more conservative than he is) so I don't think it's a good option for us.  And even if we did, I would not be dropping the girls off at the child care.  It was great for one week but otherwise, I think it's be important for them to learn to be quiet.  But, as you can imagine, Calleigh has asked me several times, "When are we going back to that church that David and Yully got married at?"

Sunday was our big cleaning day.  Our garage had gone to the dogs once again.  I guess that's just the nature of garages.  We did a mass cleaning last year and yup, it got bad again.  Duncan had Russ come over and they installed a mechanism so that we could hang up our roof top carrier and a few other items.  The most important thing is that enough room was cleared out so that I have some shelving for the food I have stocked up on and will be stocking up on.  I was very happy about that.

Yesterday Yolanda and Emma came over and we all went over to Phelps Park.  It turned out to be a very nice day weather wise and the girls had a lot of fun.  Since Yolanda was there overseeing Emma and Calleigh, I was able to focus more on Aubree who insisted on spending the majority of the time in the swing.  I never knew she liked it that much.  After the park, they came over and and had lunch at our place.  I gave Yolanda some of my stock of items (specifically the Special K that I knew we would never get around to eating since I had like 14 boxes of it and some of the yogurt that will expire before we can eat it all).  I was very relieved to know I have someone I can give stuff too so it doesn't go to waste!

Yolanda trying to push all three girls at once.

This morning I drove, very carefully (ha!), to the library for story time.  But the highlight was checking out 17 new books, 8 of which we've already read.  I think we're going to have to go to the library more often than once a week.  Calleigh had insisted on keeping two of the old books but I told her that once she got all the new ones she wouldn't care about the old ones anymore.  But she insisted.  This evening as I was snuggling her in, she informed me she didn't like her old books anymore, just as I thought.  While we were eating supper and telling Duncan about all the books, Calleigh said to us "I like books more than I like movies."  Nothing could have warmed my heart more!  So far she's taking after her mother.  In fact, while she's "reading" her books by streams of light coming from the bathroom, it reminds me of myself as a kid when I would read by the nightlight.  So I really can't fault her for wanting to stay up late reading.  Aubree has shown a great interest in the books as well but that's to be expected since she mimics everything Calleigh does.  It's interesting because even though she talks so well now, when she "reads" the books, it's all in gibberish.

Tomorrow is going to be an interesting day.  Duncan told me this evening that Calleigh would be taking me to Bob Evans for breakfast (to which Calleigh quickly butted in by saying "I don't drive.")  We have the ultrasound at 11.  Can hardly wait on that one.  I just have no idea what is but somehow in my mind I picture it as a girl but I think only because I have two girls.  Elaine is going to pick the girls up before our appointment and take them for the rest of the day.  That works out well because I know have a meeting at work with the CFO to go over some capital at 1.  After that, I hope to relax a little and then Duncan and I will be going out for supper...somewhere.  Need to figure that out.

Alrighty then.  Signing off for the night.

Saturday night we went to Ron & Elaine's for supper and Aubree had a pee accident.  Since I never bring extra clothes these days, she had to wear a towel home.  She didn't mind at all!

We stopped at the Farmer's Market after First Watch on Sunday.  It was freezing but Calleigh wanted to hit up the playground.

Morning snack.  Warning:  Giving bowls of peanut butter to toddlers results in a major mess.