I am sitting here, trying to decide what has happened that is important to write for the world to hear. Probably nothing, but here goes. We have had a couple of weeks of firsts in this household.

2 weeks ago, I traveled to Lincoln NE to help a friend who was having surgery. I ended up leaving on Saturday, as we were suppose to get a snow storm on Sunday. As it turned out, the Western part of the state that was suppose to get 6-10 inches got 2 inches, and the Easter part of the state that was suppose to get 1-2 inches got 7. Welcome to Nebraska. Anyway, I made it to Lincoln without any problems. While there, and before my friend got out of the hospital, I was able to meet up with some old friends (not friends that are old, but friends that I have known for a long time... you get the idea) and visit and catch up on our lives. My friend was suppose to get out of the hospital on Monday, but due to some complications, ended up not being released until Tuesday morning. Remember the "firsts" that I talked about earlier, well here is the first one. I headed out on Tuesday morning to pick up my friend. It was a bitterly cold morning. I looked down at my temperature gage to see when I would start getting some heat in the car. It was starting to warm up, so any minute I should start feeling the heat. A little further, and the temperature gauge is at 1/2 way to the hot mark. Ok, I really should be getting warm now. 4 blocks from the hospital, the bells and sirens start going off... "Coolant is over heating, Shut down vehicle now!" What! How can a car over heat when it is almost 0 degrease out? What to do now. I am at a stop light, no where to pull over, and if I do pull over how will I be able to work on the car when there is no room. And to top it all off, I forgot my cell phone at the house across town. Ok car we are going to get into the parking garage or die trying. I make it in, shut down the car, and walk on trembling knees to my friends hospital room, where I use her cell to call the husband.

Mark starts listing off the things that could be wrong. The most popular thought is that the thermostat is stuck. He tells me, "you can change it." Now those of you who know me, would agree with this statement, and for the most part I too agree with this statement, but not when it is 5 above 0, and I have no tools to work with. Ok plan B- go out to the car and check some things. I get to the car, and the first thing he wants me to do is take off the radiator cap... ok, there is not radiator cap. "Yes there is, I just saw it right before you left" No, I can't find it. "Find the resivore, now follow the tubes back to the radiator, and it's right there." I know where the radiator cap is suppose to be, but it is not here!" "It has to be...(long pause while his co-workers are talking to him) ok, the new vehicles don't have a radiator cap, it is the reserve tank cap that I need you to take off." Ok, that was easy. I take off the cap, and it has ice in the top of the tank. "Your radiator is most likely frozen. Here is what you need to do." Long story short, my friends dad ended up coming to pick us up, then ran me to the automotive store for "Cool-dex" antifreeze. After letting the car run for about 1 1/2 hours, it finally defrosted and got the new antifreeze mix in. I got up Wednesday morning with my fingers crossed and started the car. It ran fine and never overheated, which was good, since I headed home that day. All I can say is thank goodness for my friends father that stood out in the cold with me working on my car and for driving me around to get the stuff to fix it. You may be asking why the car froze up in the first place? Well, this is the vehicle that we got in Casper WY earlier this year, well that guy bought it at an auction in Arizona, and that may be why the antifreeze mixture was not correct. On a side note, I was not able to do much helping of my friend, but she is doing well.

The Saturday after I got home, Lexi had her first basket ball game. This would be the second "first" for those of you who are counting. We headed out to Morrill NE, about 1.25 hours away. Her first game was at 10:00 a.m. All I can say about their first game is that our team did not know what they were doing! Lexi fell on her knee towards the end of the game, and got a nice war wound to show off. Her coach told her there was no crying in basket ball. The next game was at 1:00 p.m. and the team really improved, but still needed some work. The last game was the hardest team of the day, but our girls were able to hold them to 10 points and really did well. From the looks of the other teams they have played together before, so I felt like our team did well considering they had only 4 practices and had never played a game. It will be interesting to see how they improve the next 2 games.

Grandma and Grandpa COWS (Mark's parents) were able to come down for the game. They spent the night with us, then we all headed to Sidney to go to Cabella's. We got home about 1:30 p.m then they headed home. I worked on laundry for most of the day, then we invited friends over for supper.

Well, that should catch you up on what is happening. If I can get the cameras and the computer working, I will get a slide show on here for you.

Until next time.