Dear Dragon: 2013-08-29
Dear Dragon:
It has been 7 days since you and I have spent a full day together. I haven’t seen much of you which was very hard for me, however tomorrow you and I are going to start getting our life back on track.
This letter will be to tell you what has happened, hopefully you will find humor in this, as during the time I didn’t find it funny in the least, but now looking back, I can laugh about it.
First on Thursday of last week your mother came home and told me something was wrong with Windy (our van, a 2001 Ford Windstar commonly known as a “P.O.S.”). Checking it out there was coolant flowing from the top of the engine. This is what is supposed to happen. I am a stay at home father, and love this job, but it doesn’t pay much financially. Your mother works very hard making caskets. She makes a decent amout, but we don’t often have much left over after paying our bills, and this promised to be an expensive fix. Your Great Grandfather (G-Grandpa) is a Very Good mechanic, and offered to help me fix the van.
Thursday evening we got the van to G-Grandpa’s place, just over a mile from where we currently live. We first took the “Upper Intake manifold” apart and thought it was just the gaskets, so we replaced them, put the engine back together. Now the leak is worse. I am leaving a lot of what happened on Friday, but when we found it was still leaking it was late.
We did not work on the van during the weekend as your mamamama and I work at the Renaissance festival; I will tell you more after the car fiasco. I will tell you about this weekend toward the end of this note.
On Monday we took the engine back apart, found the correct leak, but now you see there is this guy named “Murphy” who has a few laws (Such as “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong”). First G-Grandpa and I couldn’t work directly on the van as we found we had to get more tools, then later in the day we lost an important bolt. It got too late so we stopped for the evening. Tuesday morning we found the bolt, when we put the bolt in it’s place and the leak now came from below the bolt (new place), we tightened the bolt (again with Mr Murphy) the bolt broke. Took the engine back apart again, went out and bought all new bolts. It took some time to start getting the lower intake manifold back together, when we found that now a different bolt hole was “stripped” (meaning the hole was threadless). We didn’t have the tools to fix this, so I called in a friend who came over that evening to fix the stripped hole. Fortunately he found another problem ultimately saving us more headaches. Fixing the stripped hole required glue, the glue required time to set, ending the project for another night. Wednesday (Yesterday) G-Grandpa and I had much better luck as the engine came back together… we tested it, no leaks… but then the engine wouldn’t start. Through a long process we found the oil dipstick indicated there was WAY too much fluid in the oil system. It was filled to the correct level on Thursday, we could not explain where the extra fluid came from or for that matter what the extra fluid was. So I changed the oil in the van, filled it to the correct level and tried it again. Wendy (the van) roared to life. Being that it was late in the day again, and we want to test the van prior to giving it back to your mother, we left the van last night as well.
At this point it is 08:00 Monday morning; I am waiting for the day to begin. G-Grandpa and I will test Wendy today. I am in hope that Mr. Murphy will leave us alone today, but just in case, I asked your great aunt Sandy to babysit you while we run those tests.
The interesting part is during all of this, I may have gotten a job with “a garage” (a mechanic shop). I really love our time together, but we are finding our family needs more income, and I am finding that I enjoy this kind of work. I have a lot to learn, and I believe these people will be great to work with.
Now I will discuss this past weekend. Your mother and I have been looking forward to bringing you to the Renaissance festival as there are so many things we are looking forward to introducing you to, such as ducks, elephants, camels, goats, fairies, gnomes, and a lot more. However this past weekend we were told the temperature was going to get above 95° (and it really did), we were not sure we could keep you comfortable so we asked Grandma to take you over the weekend. This was the 2nd weekend in a row grandma had you.
It was HOT, very HOT, and your dadadada got to show a few people why they should wear hats on hot days, as I wore fabric on my head that came down past my shoulders, above that I kept zip-lock bags of ice, and over that was my top-hat, the fabric kept the sun off my neck, and as the ice melted the fabric kept wet and cool.
This next weekend it was supposed to be over 93° all weekend, but the forecast has changed. Now it is supposed to be 89° degrees on Saturday, and Sunday is supposed to be nice.
So if Wendy passes her tests, and the forecast still indicates it will be nice, we will finally get to re-introduce you to the renaissance, and to all the things you were too young to appreciate last year, just to be followed up with Monday (Labor-day) where your mother and father plan to take you to “the River” your mother’s family has a cabin on the Mississippi river. I am looking forward to this weekend with my wife and Dragon!
I am sorry we didn’t get much time together over these past 9 days, I am trying to keep these times apart to a minimum.
I love you with all my heart:
Dadadada
P.S. I LOVE how you have learned “Hug”, and I REALLY love that you learned “Kiss”, I am a very lucky father!!
It has been 7 days since you and I have spent a full day together. I haven’t seen much of you which was very hard for me, however tomorrow you and I are going to start getting our life back on track.
This letter will be to tell you what has happened, hopefully you will find humor in this, as during the time I didn’t find it funny in the least, but now looking back, I can laugh about it.
First on Thursday of last week your mother came home and told me something was wrong with Windy (our van, a 2001 Ford Windstar commonly known as a “P.O.S.”). Checking it out there was coolant flowing from the top of the engine. This is what is supposed to happen. I am a stay at home father, and love this job, but it doesn’t pay much financially. Your mother works very hard making caskets. She makes a decent amout, but we don’t often have much left over after paying our bills, and this promised to be an expensive fix. Your Great Grandfather (G-Grandpa) is a Very Good mechanic, and offered to help me fix the van.
Thursday evening we got the van to G-Grandpa’s place, just over a mile from where we currently live. We first took the “Upper Intake manifold” apart and thought it was just the gaskets, so we replaced them, put the engine back together. Now the leak is worse. I am leaving a lot of what happened on Friday, but when we found it was still leaking it was late.
We did not work on the van during the weekend as your mamamama and I work at the Renaissance festival; I will tell you more after the car fiasco. I will tell you about this weekend toward the end of this note.
On Monday we took the engine back apart, found the correct leak, but now you see there is this guy named “Murphy” who has a few laws (Such as “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong”). First G-Grandpa and I couldn’t work directly on the van as we found we had to get more tools, then later in the day we lost an important bolt. It got too late so we stopped for the evening. Tuesday morning we found the bolt, when we put the bolt in it’s place and the leak now came from below the bolt (new place), we tightened the bolt (again with Mr Murphy) the bolt broke. Took the engine back apart again, went out and bought all new bolts. It took some time to start getting the lower intake manifold back together, when we found that now a different bolt hole was “stripped” (meaning the hole was threadless). We didn’t have the tools to fix this, so I called in a friend who came over that evening to fix the stripped hole. Fortunately he found another problem ultimately saving us more headaches. Fixing the stripped hole required glue, the glue required time to set, ending the project for another night. Wednesday (Yesterday) G-Grandpa and I had much better luck as the engine came back together… we tested it, no leaks… but then the engine wouldn’t start. Through a long process we found the oil dipstick indicated there was WAY too much fluid in the oil system. It was filled to the correct level on Thursday, we could not explain where the extra fluid came from or for that matter what the extra fluid was. So I changed the oil in the van, filled it to the correct level and tried it again. Wendy (the van) roared to life. Being that it was late in the day again, and we want to test the van prior to giving it back to your mother, we left the van last night as well.
At this point it is 08:00 Monday morning; I am waiting for the day to begin. G-Grandpa and I will test Wendy today. I am in hope that Mr. Murphy will leave us alone today, but just in case, I asked your great aunt Sandy to babysit you while we run those tests.
The interesting part is during all of this, I may have gotten a job with “a garage” (a mechanic shop). I really love our time together, but we are finding our family needs more income, and I am finding that I enjoy this kind of work. I have a lot to learn, and I believe these people will be great to work with.
Now I will discuss this past weekend. Your mother and I have been looking forward to bringing you to the Renaissance festival as there are so many things we are looking forward to introducing you to, such as ducks, elephants, camels, goats, fairies, gnomes, and a lot more. However this past weekend we were told the temperature was going to get above 95° (and it really did), we were not sure we could keep you comfortable so we asked Grandma to take you over the weekend. This was the 2nd weekend in a row grandma had you.
It was HOT, very HOT, and your dadadada got to show a few people why they should wear hats on hot days, as I wore fabric on my head that came down past my shoulders, above that I kept zip-lock bags of ice, and over that was my top-hat, the fabric kept the sun off my neck, and as the ice melted the fabric kept wet and cool.
This next weekend it was supposed to be over 93° all weekend, but the forecast has changed. Now it is supposed to be 89° degrees on Saturday, and Sunday is supposed to be nice.
So if Wendy passes her tests, and the forecast still indicates it will be nice, we will finally get to re-introduce you to the renaissance, and to all the things you were too young to appreciate last year, just to be followed up with Monday (Labor-day) where your mother and father plan to take you to “the River” your mother’s family has a cabin on the Mississippi river. I am looking forward to this weekend with my wife and Dragon!
I am sorry we didn’t get much time together over these past 9 days, I am trying to keep these times apart to a minimum.
I love you with all my heart:
Dadadada
P.S. I LOVE how you have learned “Hug”, and I REALLY love that you learned “Kiss”, I am a very lucky father!!