So here’s an update from me since I don’t think I have written in a while. Things are good. This last weekend Nicole came down for a visit and that was really fun. Wish she lived down here but, oh well, I will get her down here soon enough! ;)

We did have a crappy run-in on Monday morning. I got my first flat tire on the 91 freeway in LA. We had to have the car towed to the nearest Mini dealer so I could get the tire fixed. Turns out the Cooper S doesn’t have a spare because it has “run flat” tires that you can supposedly drive on for up to 50 miles at 50 mph once they are flat…who knows maybe I had gone that far but by the time I realized it was flat it was pretty destroyed. It was pretty much hanging off the wheel when it was hoisted up on the tow truck. My poor Remus! :( So we got it to the Long Beach Mini dealership where they told me it couldn’t be repaired, had to be replaced. We had to end up waiting because we had no other way to get anywhere. Horrible service at the dealership. I’m sending them a letter about it…hopefully something will come of that. They didn’t offer us anything and pretty much ignored that we were there until they came to tell me that I had to replace the other front tire as well at a sweet $225 a tire…in the words of Dad, “if you buy a hi-perf vehicle, you have to pay hi-perf prices”. So I did and it pretty much sucked. I wasn’t really counting on a $600 bill that day for new tires. So after waiting for about 3 hours (3 hours to change two tires??!! Honestly, how many breaks did they take!?) we finally were on our way to Disneyland, our original destination. Disneyland made me feel better. We had the most amazing lunch at the Café Orleans, my newly discovered fav place to eat, in New Orleans Square. We had Creole fries, Monte Cristos and beignets! Yum! We then spent a few more hours enjoying various rides throughout the park before I had to take Nicole back to the Long Beach airport for her flight back to Salt Lake. It was a great weekend and nice to get away from the craziness of home.

This week is pretty much back to normal. We have been having internet problems at work yesterday and today…very annoying since we really can’t do anything without it because our server with all of our files and email is off-site so we have to access it through the internet. So right now the internet is down so I figured I would write this since I have nothing else left to do but play Spider solitaire.

I am very excited to hear that I will get to see Melia and Kimmy for Christmas! Thanks again Treven! It will be fun to come up and visit for the time I will be there. I believe that I fly into Portland on the night of Thursday Dec 21st and will be staying through the morning of Friday Dec 29th . Nice to be in an office that closes for that week! :)

It is great to hear from you all. Glad that you are doing well. I think we are due for another report from Bavaria. :)

Love you all.

M