Mazda Woes

On April 4, we stumbled on what we thought was our dream car down in Lehi, UT. A 2005 Mazda 6, with relatively low miles, in the color I wanted, and in our price range? Heck yeah!! We signed the papers with the dealer that night and came back the next day to pick it up. That’s when we noticed that the car had one snow tire on it, and it was in terrible shape. One snow tire? It’s not even legal to put only two snow tires on a front wheel drive car! That should have been our first warning. But the dealer paid to have it replaced so we forgot about it. (As a side note, we sold my sweet little Corolla that same day! On KSL for 10 minutes and 3 people had called haha. I cried as we drove away from my first car.)

A week later, I took the Mazda in for an oil change and was told it’d probably been at least 6,000-7,000 miles since it was last changed. (2^nd warning!) Jiffy cleaned my whole fuel system though and said I should be good. A few days later we left for Nebraska. Ugh! That whole trip, we burned about 2 quarts of oil every 100 miles. Talk about a long drive! When we got back to Utah, we drove straight back to the dealer and told him to fix it or we wanted our money back. They promised that they’d be able to fix it and would even help cover most of the costs. After having our car until the end of June and avoiding most of our phone calls, the dealer said that it was done. Levi and a friend drove down to get it.

Not only did the car STILL burn oil, now one of the cylinders wasn’t firing. We took it to a good friend up in Pocatello, and prayed he’d be able to do something for us. After finding that the crappy dealer’s mechanic had screwed up even more stuff, we decided that it would be cheaper and smarter to replace the whole engine rather than try to fix the old one. Thank heavens for savings accounts! We may not have one anymore, but it was there when we needed it.

The “great deal” on a Mazda ended up altogether costing us the same as if we’d bought one several years newer. In perfect condition. And what have we learned? NEVER believe a deal that seems too good to be true, don’t trust someone who just wants your money, and never EVER buy a car from a creepy, sinister little Venezuelan man…

We Have Walls!!

As cute as our Cozy Cave was, after one month of poor heating and a bout of appendicitis, we were done with it. Cheap rent isn’t always the best thing.

So our great friend Cami told us that an apartment next to her was opening up as soon as they were done remodeling, and we jumped on it. I’m sure the landlady thought we were crazy as we raved over this little apartment and the fact that it has WALLS!!

The word “cave” now refers to our kitchen. Mom likes to say that it’s efficient, because you can stand in one spot and just spin to get everything done. I still say it makes me claustrophobic.

The pretty table made the trip with us J It looks so much happier in this dining room.

Our living room is now separate from the bedroom, so we have room for a real couch!

Still trying to get everything unpacked, but there’s room for both mine AND Levi’s clothes in this closet. AND shoes, AND gun cabinet! Woot!

Our luck with furniture continues! The last entertainment center that any store in Logan had that was the style that Levi wanted, and a sweet new TV found on sale. (The entertainment center WILL be painted black eventually. But for now, we’re just thankful that it’s functional.)

We love our new happy home!

"Will there be a mint on my pillow?"

Levi had been sick for about a week. Every night when he came home from work, he had a horrible stomach ache and was way more grouchy than usual. But big boys don’t need doctors. On Friday, we were at a friend’s place and as Levi was lying on the floor in severe pain, Hatty and Mitch looked at him and said “Dude, you need a blessing.” So thankful for good friends with good intuition!

Saturday night, the fever hit. I thought Levi was just finally in a good mood, but as he started talking nonsense and giggling uncontrollably, I realized that it was something different. Luckily I’m a die-hard ibuprofen girl, so once I doped him up he seemed much better.

Sunday was the day it all went to pot. That night we were at Hatty’s again and Levi was still in pain. After going home, he decided that it was time to see a doctor. Checking in to the ER at 11:00 p.m. is never something looked forward to.

 

After 5 hours, 2 doctors, an ultrasound, and a cat scan, the 7 foot tall doctor came back and said he thought that they could see the “remnants” of his appendix. (Levi likes to call it his shrapnel.) Doc said that his appendix had probably ruptured Friday, but miraculously his body had walled off the toxins and kept them contained, rather than spreading and trying to kill him like normal appendicitis. Levi and I looked at each other, and then I cried. Mitchell and Hatty probably saved his life with that blessing.

 

Around 5 a.m. on Monday, they finally let us out of the ER and took us up to an actual hospital room. As they wheeled us into an elevator, Levi asked the nurse, “Will there be a mint on my pillow?” Always my lighthearted boy. J

The doctors wouldn’t do surgery where his appendix had already ruptured for fear of those toxins spreading and causing more damage. So, the next four days were full of lots of antibiotics, pain, visitors, and healing. Now we’re home and still doing antibiotics, trying to get things back to normal.

Not where we thought we’d be spending our 1-month anniversary, but we’ve quickly learned the truth to “in sickness and in health”.

Cozy Cave

First apartments are supposed to be small, aren’t they? Well we definitely got that one right. Levi lived in our little 2-room home for about a month before we got married. I think it worked better as a bachelor pad. ;)

 In our little studio, our bedroom is also the living room:

Our kitchen’s only counter space is on either side of the sink, which is an all in one sink/drawer/cabinet thingy from many generations before I was born.

  

Our stove is also from that era, and the fridge seems to have been built for a camp trailer. For example, frozen pizzas only fit if we put them in diagonally…

LOVE my shelf from Bed Bath & Beyond. It holds our fabulous new kitchen appliance collection. Ü And we do enjoy the sturdy shelves built into the half wall that separates the kitchen from our bedroom.

 My favorite item in the new apartment: our new table!!! We found this adorable square pub table at Down East. It was almost as much for one chair in the set as our table though, so we’re still in search of stools or chairs.

It may not be much but we’re happy! And it’s nice to be right on the edge of campus. Now if only we could pick up the campus internet signal…

Viva Las Vegas!

And our happily ever after continues! Ü

For our honeymoon we spent one day in Salt Lake City, seeing all the Christmas lights

and touring Temple Square.

For the rest of the week we decided to go to Vegas, since I had never been there and it had been years since Levi was there.

(Our end of The Strip, Circus Circus hotel)

We were hopeful that even though we were going in December, it would be warmer than Logan. Not so much. The storm that had caused blizzards and closed freeways in northern Utah became lots of RAIN as we went further south. The Virgin River was fast and muddy, and as we walked around Las Vegas, we were laughing at how many buckets were sitting around in the buildings; they didn’t know what to do with so much rain and so many leaks!

(And so we made it our job to try all the best buffets while we were there.

Levi sure got his money's worth.)

So we spent four days at Circus Circus and had tons of fun slipping and sliding in our boots up and down The Strip. The second day we went to Hoover Dam.

Of course we had to throw pennies off the top.

That night, Levi decided we should walk the whole length of The Strip, telling me “Oh it’s only like a half mile, you’ll be fine!” (I was already exhausted from walking back and forth across the dam all day!)

But all the way from Circus Circus to the Luxor Casino we went, going back and forth across the road, up and down, into every hotel and casino as we passed.

By the time we got to the Luxor, I was ready to pay for a room there and stay the night. When we got home the first thing I did was look up the distance – THREE MILES from one end to the other. No kidding.

The whole trip was a blast though! Where else can you see a Statue of Liberty made solely of Jelly Bellies, huh?