Pura Vida

Two weeks ago, I was driving our Galloper when the clutch gave out and I had to pull over because I couldn't put it in gear. Somehow, after trying different ways to force it into gear, I was able to manually pull the clutch back into position and drive it home. We took it in and ended up needing to replace the transmission. $350 and 3 days with no car. Last Saturday, after driving home from being at a pool with the kids while Kevin was on work calls all day, I pulled into our carport. When I got out, I noticed that smoke was coming out of the muffler. Then, smoke started pouring out under the hood. The radiator was dry and the coolant reservoir was completely empty. They were both leaking, so we had to replace both. $300 and 3 days without a car. When the mechanic replaced the radiator, he went to check that everything else was fine and found some huge leak connected with the motor. So, now we need to replace the motor. $3000 and at least another week without a car. We've

The last two weeks have been some of the greatest we've had here. We haven't had any family come visit since we saw Shel and Trent's family the first month we got here.  It's been a long 6 months with no visitors and a few months ago, we finally got Kevin's parents booked on a flight to come visit us. Then, out of the blue, my sister called and said they were bumping up the trip they'd been planning on taking in July or August and were now coming the following week because her husband had some time off work. So, Sharon and Mauri got here Tuesday night and Kevin's parents got here on Friday. Sharon brought us enough chocolate chips and M&M's to last us a year if we were normal people. However, we're not and the M&M's are almost gone. Wednesday, we went and spent the day at Las Catalinas. On our way, we stopped at every beach we passed so Mauri could take pictures. It was really fun showing off how amazing of a place we live in. After liv