RIP Mazda

The Mazda is kaput. For those of you who never had the pleasure of meeting "La Maz", as we used to call her, she was a 1986 Mazda 323 that we've driven for the last 5 years. Keri's dad found it in CA with only 76,000 miles on it (and no rust!) for a mere $1400. Even though most of the stories many of you have heard about it involve break downs of some sort (wheels falling off in Southern Indiana, not starting after it rained overnight, the battery dieing on us continually for a year), it really has been a great car. We drove it from CA to MI with semi trucks passing us through the Rockies, and we took it on several trips after that, but a 23 year old car can only last so long. Though it had only 105,000 miles on it, things were starting to go wrong more and more consistently--exhaust, tires, and the death knell...brakes. This was not a great time financially for us to get a new car, and it always is cheaper to fix a car then to buy a new one, but we really felt like this was it for the Mazda. La Maz has earned her rest, and we got the $199 processing fee on our new car waived to trade her in for wholesale.

After a long search, we got a 2004 Hyundai Santa Fe Monday night. We wanted something a bit bigger than our Honda Accord for hauling things like C.J.'s drums and a dog (we're planning on getting a big one!). We are hoping this will be a reliable car! We hope we're done with major expenses for a while!

Ely

For the last of the England blogs, we did a day trip to Ely from Cambridge via train on New Year's Day. The two big attractions there were a tea house voted the best tea in England (which was closed because it was New Year's) and a cathedral started in 1020 A.D. It was very cold, but a cool day!

Stopping to play at a playground

The whole family at Starbucks

Dexter being a ham

The family outside of Ely Cathedral

The side of the cathedral

A picture from the inside of the church

C.J. and Dexter on the swings

London

While in England, the whole family took a 2 hour busride to London. We stayed overnight, so we had two days to see the city! The most striking thing was the age of the buildings! We think a 100 year old building is old here in the states, but we saw several buildings there over 1000 years old! We got to go to an evensong service in Westminster Abby, where it said that worship had been offered in that building every day for over 1000 years. What an incredible experience! We also got to see Big Ben, the changing of the guard, Trafalgar Square, the British Museum and lots more! It was a great trip and our nephews were such troopers. Nate (3) walked most of what we walked and was only carried towards the end of the day.

The London Eye (Ferris Wheel)

The fam in front of Big Ben

Dexter sacked out

Big Ben and a double-decker bus

Nate and Keri in the underground

Us in front of a huge lion in Trafalgar Square

Trafalgar Square

The Rosetta Stone in the British Museum

Westminster Abbey at night

One of the tables at the Dutch Panacuken restaurant

Changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace and a ticked off policeman

The guard

Us in front of the palace

Buckingham Palace

Sisters! Back in Trafalgar Square

C.J. with a picture of the Chelsea Football club at their stadium

Haley, Kel, and Mom on Portobello Road on our way the market

Cambridge and Family Time!

Okay, we're going to break up the trip to England as well. Fulfilling a dream of our family's (we've been planning the trip since summer of '07 when we found out Keri's sister Kelli and her husband were moving to England for 3 years for Kelli to do a post-doctorate project at Cambridge University), Keri's whole family and we went to England together for 8 days from Dec. 26-Jan. 2. Pictures of our 2-day trip to London and a side trip to Ely are to follow, but the first few days while we recovered from jet-lag, we hung out in Cambridge. What a cool and quaint city! It was also so good to be together and see Nate and Dexter (nephews). We're so glad Keri's brother and sister-in-law took on the challenge of changing 8 hours time and flying 8 hour flights with a 1 year old and 3 year old. It was an incredible trip! I'll let the pictures do most of the talking!

C.J. excited about the personal video screens (that didn't work the whole way to London)

On a walk in Cambridge the first day

The family in Cambridge on a bridge over the river Cam

Cathedral in Cambridge

Street in Cambridge

Nate on a bear near a museum

Us with our wooden shoe slippers we got from Kel and Ryan for Christmas from Amsterdam

The whole family at church!

Grandma and Grandpa with the kiddos

Aunt Keri, Nate, Uncle C.J. and Dexter

Dexter learned to say "Uncle" after we had been tickling Nate all week and telling him to say it

Move-in Day

Because it has been so long since our last post (and so much has happened!) I'm going to break it up. We'll start with move in day to the new condo. Besides 2 hurt backs, one case of pink eye, and 5 separate leaks in the condo, the day went well. We really like it now that we're a bit more settled. Although there is much more to do, we like it and are glad to be done with the huge step of moving in! Now we can be a little bit more relaxed about the work left. On an unrelated note, the Mazda (1986 for anyone who doesn't know) may be finally declared dead, as the brakes went out and will cost over $500 to fix. If anyone knows of anyone selling a car cheap, please let us know as this is not the greatest timing to have to make another huge purchase! (Too bad one can't drive brand new refridgerators to work!) Here are some pictures of the condo as far as we have gotten it:

Cleaned out and ready for move-in

C.J. installing the stove, cupboard doors back on

New refridgerator and dishwasher

Living room

Dining room with the overflow of stuff that wouldn't fit in the 2nd bedroom

3rd floor (still unpainted, but quite homey!)