Cake, Basement, and Car, It's Been Too Long!

I apologize for the over abundance of pictures!  But here are some things that have been happening at our house in the last couple of weeks.  

My dad came to visit the day after his birthday so I made a cake, and we even sang to him! You gotta love Francois' silly faces!

Francois and my dad did a lot of work in the basement the week he was here.  Here you can see where they framed a storage room and a bedroom.

My pretty storage room, which ended up being bigger than the original plan. 

Future movie room. We still haven't quite decided what to do about the windows. If you have any great ideas let me know.

Bedroom, which when finished will probably become the office/sewing room.

Bedroom closet. I love how big it will be!

Here you can see the framing around the heat ducts, and Francois working hard!

The innovative design for our heating so the ducts will be on the bottom of the wall. It isn't complete yet, but it's already warmer down there.

Xander lovin' on Grandpa! Xander just wanted to be with Grandpa all the time (he has a cell phone and a Blackberry!) and would follow him around whenever they were both in the same place.

My new car. I really, really like it!

So, for anyone who doesn't know my sad Blazer story I will fill you in. I am an IDIOT! Ok, I was driving at night, looked down to put something in a bag and drove right into and over a snow (ice really) pile around the corner from my house. I was fine (and the only one in the car), the eggs in the back didn't even break, but the Blazer was officially declared dead a couple of days later.  There was frame damage and enough damage inside the engine compartment that the cost to fix it wasn't worth it.  Thankfully, we still had full insurance on it so we were able to have some money to put toward something new.  After looking at various vehicles we decided on a 2005 Honda Pilot. Our favorite car was probably the 2006 Cadillac Escalade that we looked at. That vehicle was probably the nicest car I have ever driven, but even though on paper the financials looked ok, we just felt horrible about the decision to purchase it (but we both really, really wanted it). So, we kept looking and were able to find my Pilot. It has leather seats and a DVD player, which Xander is intrigued by but not quite ready for. But, this is definitely a vehicle that will be much better for trips to Utah.  I feel incredibly spoiled because it's so much nicer than I feel I deserve after putting an early end to the Blazer. And I feel incredibly blessed because I wasn't injured, I didn't injure anyone else, and we had some things change recently in our financial situation that allowed us to be able to afford a second car payment.  Even though, I'm not happy about what happened I truly believe that the Lord knew what was in store for me and made everything easier than it would have been without his help.