Friday, November 25, 2016

Mr. and Mrs. Fix-it!

I drive a 2002 Ford Escape.  It is the first new car I've ever bought, its been paid off for a while now and I love it!

I've enjoyed learning how to do basic repairs...Change a tire, air up the tires and check / refill fluids. Oil, coolant, window washer fluid. 

Recently my coolant light had been lighting up, so I check my level, its low, I fill it up and call it good.

A couple of days later I go in for an oil change (coolant light is on again).  I ask them to check it and it seems that my coolant overflow tank has a crack and is leaking.  They want $200 to fix it.  The Hubs says, "No Way!  We will do it!" so I bring it home.

We watched a how to YouTube video on how to change one out, found the tank at Auto Zone for $70, and half an hour later I had a brand new tank!  Yay us!


New tank.
How pretty is that?!


Much easier than you think!

If you ever want to know how to do something...watch a how to YouTube video!

Family Fall Carnival

Yesterday was Thanksgiving but I have several posts that I'm behind on!

The week after Halloween found me in the garage building a Nerf Shooting Range for our school's Family Fall Carnival.  Each Classroom Rep (that would be me) was responsible for choosing a theme, putting it together and staffing it during the carnival.

I chose Nerf Shooting Range...cause you know, I'm a Boy Mom, and I knew that Little Man would dig it, and we already had an arsenal of Nerf guns and ammo, and shooting targets is super fun!  Easy peasy, right?!  Not so much.

I googled and did Pinterest research for Nerf shooting galleries and carnival games in general and came up a general idea of what I wanted to build.  Run to Home Depot, PVC pipe, a tarp, spray paint, adhesive spray, zip ties, Nerf gun, ammo, a dry erase board, three days of building and tweaking! All good!

Think again.  I build the thing on site and quickly realized that I did not account for wind resistance. Gah!  After blowing over on me within 5 minutes, I started slashing my tarp to allow the breeze to go through instead of pushing it over.  It worked!  Crisis avoided!



We bought a back up gun...just in case and of course, Little Man's gun kept jamming the day of the carnival so we used the new one.  Whew!

We used the dry erase board as a "leader board" for the top shooters per grade.  The kids loved it and it got very competitive!  Kudos to the girls who out shot the boys! hee hee

We handed out prize tickets based on targets hit / points and the kids in turn visited the prize booth for cool stuff like emoji pillows, candy and other misc items.   

And Bonus!  Our booth won the "Most Creative Booth" award!  So Little Man's class gets an Ice Cream Party!  Woot!



Thank goodness The Hubs helped out because it was a 2 person job!  One person taking tickets to play and chasing down overshot darts and the other loading the gun and watching the targets.  

Little Man ran amuck for 4 hours.  Eek!  But he did check in with us every hour, so not too bad.

Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Halloween Mission Accomplished!

I said I needed to take more pics this year and I did!  :D

After a week of scraping and repainting the hall bathroom sink cabinets and pocket doors, a quick trip up to Oklahoma to visit family over the weekend, putting up party decor, cleaning the house, a super fast shower, slapped on some polish on my naked toes...we had our Halloween Party.  

And I am freaking exhausted!

Heres the pics!

Went with a "less is more" decorating scheme this year



Group pic!
Back row: Ninja, Zombie, Basketball Player and Pug
Front row:  The Ravens



Me, Deirdre, Karen and Cincy



Had to get a pic without the pug head on.  :D



Loved their black wings!


Now its time to take down Halloween and put up Thanksgiving!  But first...COFFEE!

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