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My favorite Superbowl commercial didn't even air here in Denver. But it did star a person who's very popular here in our household. In fact FFM calls her nearly everyday on his play cell phone. Aunt Karen's been busy lately and has been getting a lot of commercial work. So far she's been in ads for a casino, Cold Stone, Hyatt, and this one is an Arizona homebuilder.
http://www.fultonhomes.com/pages/superbowl_ad.aspx
This ad aired in Arizona during the Superbowl and Uncle Q sent a link so the rest of us could watch it. Aunt Karen stars as "Substandard House" (one of the green and white ones) and it's easiest to spot her as the house with the longest name. She filmed this right before we visited them in Phoenix at Thanksgiving and regaled us with stories of trying to run in giant shoes, trying to catch and throw a football with giant white hands, and getting tackled.
Way better than all those Bud and Doritos ads we got here. Way to go Karen!
The Wrong Car
We are having dramas.
While there are a lot of big decisions Travis and I can make while living on two continents, discussing merits of new couches, TVs, even houses and school districts, etc over Skype, there are two things I can't decide and buy without him physically being here. 1) hard backed chairs 2) a car. For those items he's just got to be here in person so we can make sure his lanky, well over 6' frame will fit.
So, I did months of research, went to a timely autoshow in Phoenix over Thanksgiving and sat in what seemed like every reasonable vehicle there, made a spreadsheet, and narrowed the field. Upon his arrival in Denver all we had to do was test drive, agree we both liked it, and make sure he fit comfortably (a big vehicle doesn't always mean he'll fit, he fits in my little sports car but you can't cram him in a Hummer with a spatula).
So we picked our vehicle and decided on the features that are the most important to us. It turns out these features are pretty unique, and not part of the standard packages dealers have on their lots. We hemmed and hawed, and sat down to talk with our moms who have been kindly loaning their cars to us. We're currently a one car family, except when Travis' mom is out gallivanting the globe and leaves her car here for minding. My car, which is the aforementioned sporty car, doesn't go in the snow, so it's been living at my mom's house and she's loaned us her four wheel drive (our 1 car right now) during this unusually snowy winter.
Both moms, in that motherly way, assured us that we should go ahead and keep borrowing the car(s) for another 6-8 weeks while we ordered and waited for the delivery of our custom built car, with exactly the options we wanted on it. Keep in mind I'd already BEEN borrowing my mom's car since the first big snowstorm in October! Travis' mom left her car here for three weeks in Dec/Jan while she was away and now has left it again for three weeks while she's gone again.
We wait...and wait...and wait. The car manufacturing plant shuts down for two weeks at Christmas....
Then we get word the car is on it's way, hooray! I tell my mom her car will return soon! Our car broker, Debi, arranges her man to come in on his day off to put the clear bra on. She tells us we can come on Saturday afternoon to pick it up. We're thrilled. Travis and I show up at the dealer with a bounce in our step, Debi takes us out to look at our new car, she hands me the keys. It's shiny, it's red, it's just like we wanted. I climb in, breathe in that great smell, look up at the sunroof FFM and I really wanted, Travis and I sit in the comfy front seats and then peer into the back....
The rear seats are all wrong.
We'd ordered a bench seat and they'd installed captain chairs.
Ugh.
This was the whole big deal from the very beginning, The sunroof/bench seat combo was the hard one to find. The sunroof/captain chair combo is sitting on a car lot somewhere and could have been shipped in, we could have had it two months ago. Debi's annoyed. She calls the guy at the dealership who placed the order (who is at home on his day off) hoping that maybe they just sent over the wrong car. There is silence at his end of the phone. He realized he made a mistake and ordered the wrong car.
Ugh. Ugh. UGH!
Word for now is that we'll probably have to wait another 6-8 weeks. We discussed just taking the car that's here, but we'll have this car for a long time and I'm a bit of a car geek. I want the RIGHT car. I don't want to be annoyed by some dumb BIG mistake in our car for the next 5, 7, 10 years. We'll know for sure on Monday if there's not someway to put a rush on it.
While there are a lot of big decisions Travis and I can make while living on two continents, discussing merits of new couches, TVs, even houses and school districts, etc over Skype, there are two things I can't decide and buy without him physically being here. 1) hard backed chairs 2) a car. For those items he's just got to be here in person so we can make sure his lanky, well over 6' frame will fit.
So, I did months of research, went to a timely autoshow in Phoenix over Thanksgiving and sat in what seemed like every reasonable vehicle there, made a spreadsheet, and narrowed the field. Upon his arrival in Denver all we had to do was test drive, agree we both liked it, and make sure he fit comfortably (a big vehicle doesn't always mean he'll fit, he fits in my little sports car but you can't cram him in a Hummer with a spatula).
So we picked our vehicle and decided on the features that are the most important to us. It turns out these features are pretty unique, and not part of the standard packages dealers have on their lots. We hemmed and hawed, and sat down to talk with our moms who have been kindly loaning their cars to us. We're currently a one car family, except when Travis' mom is out gallivanting the globe and leaves her car here for minding. My car, which is the aforementioned sporty car, doesn't go in the snow, so it's been living at my mom's house and she's loaned us her four wheel drive (our 1 car right now) during this unusually snowy winter.
Both moms, in that motherly way, assured us that we should go ahead and keep borrowing the car(s) for another 6-8 weeks while we ordered and waited for the delivery of our custom built car, with exactly the options we wanted on it. Keep in mind I'd already BEEN borrowing my mom's car since the first big snowstorm in October! Travis' mom left her car here for three weeks in Dec/Jan while she was away and now has left it again for three weeks while she's gone again.
We wait...and wait...and wait. The car manufacturing plant shuts down for two weeks at Christmas....
Then we get word the car is on it's way, hooray! I tell my mom her car will return soon! Our car broker, Debi, arranges her man to come in on his day off to put the clear bra on. She tells us we can come on Saturday afternoon to pick it up. We're thrilled. Travis and I show up at the dealer with a bounce in our step, Debi takes us out to look at our new car, she hands me the keys. It's shiny, it's red, it's just like we wanted. I climb in, breathe in that great smell, look up at the sunroof FFM and I really wanted, Travis and I sit in the comfy front seats and then peer into the back....
The rear seats are all wrong.
We'd ordered a bench seat and they'd installed captain chairs.
Ugh.
This was the whole big deal from the very beginning, The sunroof/bench seat combo was the hard one to find. The sunroof/captain chair combo is sitting on a car lot somewhere and could have been shipped in, we could have had it two months ago. Debi's annoyed. She calls the guy at the dealership who placed the order (who is at home on his day off) hoping that maybe they just sent over the wrong car. There is silence at his end of the phone. He realized he made a mistake and ordered the wrong car.
Ugh. Ugh. UGH!
Word for now is that we'll probably have to wait another 6-8 weeks. We discussed just taking the car that's here, but we'll have this car for a long time and I'm a bit of a car geek. I want the RIGHT car. I don't want to be annoyed by some dumb BIG mistake in our car for the next 5, 7, 10 years. We'll know for sure on Monday if there's not someway to put a rush on it.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
One For the Little People
25 minutes and 49 seconds.
That's how long I was on hold today waiting to cancel a credit card. Flipping back and forth between continents and currencies we've got extra credit cards that now just sit around doing nothing. Several years ago I canceled one, Discover, since we couldn't ever use it outside of the US. It took about 6 minutes. On the slate for today, cancelling another that just sent a letter about a new annual fee.
I called up credit card from Big Bank X and had a pretty short wait time to talk to a real person, less than five minutes. We chatted about my credit card needs and why I wanted to cancel. So far pretty straightforward and it was at this point that Discover simply cancelled my card. However Big Bank X informed me that I needed to talk to a Customer Representative Manager and therefore would need to hold. OK, say I, they don't seem busy, my last hold time was short, and it's nice and quiet around here at my house since it's nap time. I'll hold. 25 minutes and 49 seconds later, after hearing "Please hold for the next available Customer Representative Manager" every 15 seconds, I got a real person.
I don't have a speaker phone. I wish I did. I could have been folding laundry. I did, however manage to do some one handed unpacking and am glad my phone is at least cordless. I'm glad I was able to use my land line and not use up nearly half an hour of shared family minutes on a pointless hold that I'm positive was banking psychological warfare intended to make me hang up so I wouldn't cancel my card.
Take that Big Bank. You're not paying for bonuses out an annual fee from ME this year! ;)
That's how long I was on hold today waiting to cancel a credit card. Flipping back and forth between continents and currencies we've got extra credit cards that now just sit around doing nothing. Several years ago I canceled one, Discover, since we couldn't ever use it outside of the US. It took about 6 minutes. On the slate for today, cancelling another that just sent a letter about a new annual fee.
I called up credit card from Big Bank X and had a pretty short wait time to talk to a real person, less than five minutes. We chatted about my credit card needs and why I wanted to cancel. So far pretty straightforward and it was at this point that Discover simply cancelled my card. However Big Bank X informed me that I needed to talk to a Customer Representative Manager and therefore would need to hold. OK, say I, they don't seem busy, my last hold time was short, and it's nice and quiet around here at my house since it's nap time. I'll hold. 25 minutes and 49 seconds later, after hearing "Please hold for the next available Customer Representative Manager" every 15 seconds, I got a real person.
I don't have a speaker phone. I wish I did. I could have been folding laundry. I did, however manage to do some one handed unpacking and am glad my phone is at least cordless. I'm glad I was able to use my land line and not use up nearly half an hour of shared family minutes on a pointless hold that I'm positive was banking psychological warfare intended to make me hang up so I wouldn't cancel my card.
Take that Big Bank. You're not paying for bonuses out an annual fee from ME this year! ;)
Quote of the Day
"Mommy's eyes are orange!"
A little background here - Travis keeps telling FFM he's got to wear his sunnies because his eyes are blue. I just ask him to please wear his sunnies because it's bright, but Travis is right, it's extra important for blue-eyed people to protect their eyes from the sun.
So all of sudden FFM's become really interested in the color of everyone's eyes. And I guess yesterday mine were orange (they're really brown, which he does know).
A little background here - Travis keeps telling FFM he's got to wear his sunnies because his eyes are blue. I just ask him to please wear his sunnies because it's bright, but Travis is right, it's extra important for blue-eyed people to protect their eyes from the sun.
So all of sudden FFM's become really interested in the color of everyone's eyes. And I guess yesterday mine were orange (they're really brown, which he does know).
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Getting our Moneys Worth
I took FFM in for a developmental assessment today. FFM was a bit slow to talk back in the day and our pediatrician in Perth suggested that we check in with a speech therapist when we returned to the US. She proposed waiting since the wait for one in Australia would put us at our return date anyway. In the meantime his vocabulary exploded and while he's still sometimes hard to understand (when he's tired or excited) his new pediatrician thought while he probably didn't really need it we should go ahead and do it. She's actually a pretty good doc and said, well, if his doctor who knew him well thought he should be screened, let's do it. Plus it's done through a program associated with the school district so let's use that program all your tax dollars go to pay for.
The assessment covers the whole she-bang, from speech, to cognitive ability, to gross and fine motor skills. It involved lots of paperwork and annoying stuff beforehand on my part (I mentioned it's funded by taxes, see?) but all in all seemed well worth it. We learned a lot today from three therapists that all sat down on the floor and played with FFM.
Turns out his speech is just fine, he's right where he should be, and even using some sounds ahead of schedule. All that practice we've been doing has paid off. We got some exercises to do at home so he can learn to say 'F', it's a consonant that normally comes later in the scheme of speech but since it's the first letter of his name the therapist thought he/we might like him to be able to say it a little sooner.
His cognitive abilities are great, too. The psychologist had nothing but great things to tell us, that FFM's way ahead of schedule, when she described what she found. It made me sit up a little straighter and feel those millions of questions we've fielded and thousands of stories we've read and hundreds of games we've played are worth it.
Oh, and gross motor. Well, he's got some work to do. He's cautious. He'll do the skills but will compensate. Hmmm. Probably my fault, I say. He doesn't like to go up onto things without holding on to something (like stairs, stepping over a toy). And he'll jump with two feet off the ground but only if he's doing something funny with his arms (I missed this part, they were out in the hall). And he's a bit timid (physically, not socially). I've noticed this at playgrounds recently, even more so than when we were in Oz, when Mac and Lexie would go charging all over play structures and FFM wouldn't be quite so sure about some new part of a playground.
So we'll go back again and they'll play some more. Since he's been 100% healthy, i.e. no chronic ear infections, no one's really very concerned at this point, it'll be interesting to see what happens. I'm glad to see our tax dollars at work.
The assessment covers the whole she-bang, from speech, to cognitive ability, to gross and fine motor skills. It involved lots of paperwork and annoying stuff beforehand on my part (I mentioned it's funded by taxes, see?) but all in all seemed well worth it. We learned a lot today from three therapists that all sat down on the floor and played with FFM.
Turns out his speech is just fine, he's right where he should be, and even using some sounds ahead of schedule. All that practice we've been doing has paid off. We got some exercises to do at home so he can learn to say 'F', it's a consonant that normally comes later in the scheme of speech but since it's the first letter of his name the therapist thought he/we might like him to be able to say it a little sooner.
His cognitive abilities are great, too. The psychologist had nothing but great things to tell us, that FFM's way ahead of schedule, when she described what she found. It made me sit up a little straighter and feel those millions of questions we've fielded and thousands of stories we've read and hundreds of games we've played are worth it.
Oh, and gross motor. Well, he's got some work to do. He's cautious. He'll do the skills but will compensate. Hmmm. Probably my fault, I say. He doesn't like to go up onto things without holding on to something (like stairs, stepping over a toy). And he'll jump with two feet off the ground but only if he's doing something funny with his arms (I missed this part, they were out in the hall). And he's a bit timid (physically, not socially). I've noticed this at playgrounds recently, even more so than when we were in Oz, when Mac and Lexie would go charging all over play structures and FFM wouldn't be quite so sure about some new part of a playground.
So we'll go back again and they'll play some more. Since he's been 100% healthy, i.e. no chronic ear infections, no one's really very concerned at this point, it'll be interesting to see what happens. I'm glad to see our tax dollars at work.
