Reading to the Dog

This post is dedicated to EE. Not for the content. Just because. :)

Today right after swimming Amirah had a time reserved at "Reading to the Dogs" in the room adjacent to the pool room. Convenient! She and I went in and met Maggie the Dog, a very, very sweet yellow lab. They hung out for a couple of minutes while Amirah enjoyed watching her devour a rawhide bone, then they got down to the business of reading. Maggie's owner would help out whenever Amirah got stuck, and she read with a lot of good focus, wanting to make sure it was a good story for the dog, of course! The book she chose was Dr. Seuss's Hop on Pop. Maggie enjoyed it very much and so did Amirah. She would read 2 or 3 pages, then pet her back or scratch her ears. It was really nice to do some reading in a different context. We're planning to go every Thursday after swimming.

Other than that, we've all been hacking away with colds. Some worse than others. Papa again, bless his heart, took dear daughter to her OMSI science class. This week's class was "Simple Machines" and they learned about inclined planes, axles, wheels, and many other things like that. Amirah really enjoys those classes a lot.

We also had an independent appraiser take a look at the van. (I have a great recommendation if anyone ever, G-d forbid, needs one in the Portland area!). It looks like our insurance company offered us less than half its value, but we'll find out soon. We'll get a report by the end of next week. Apparently, such a lowball offer is egregious and can be the basis for being officially penalized. We'll see... In the meantime, if our van passes smog this next week I reckon we'll take the insurance money, fix the rear window and call it good. If not, we'll have to decide if we get the van up to snuff or put all our money into getting a new-to-us full-size van. Something like a GMC Safari or Ford Econoline. That's what we wanted to get in 1-2 years, just weren't planning on it quite yet. It would make a cross-country trip to a (please, Hashem) new city much easier. And camping trips, or any vacation trip, would be much easier with the extra room. Plus I really want to be able to take a friend or two with us on adventures whenever we want to. No room for that in our vintage Odyssey (1995). So... decisions to be made. Probably best to stick to the 2-year-plan for a new van, if possible... On the other hand, maybe we're not supposed to get it fixed??? Why on earth would it have sat at a body shop for TWO WEEKS and not had ANY WORK done on it? That was just plain... ODD.

The only other news is that Dean's unit is officially being dissolved, reportedly at the end of the fiscal year (June 30). He does have a good shot at picking up basically his same-ish job in the unit to where it's being transferred, though. We're just very grateful that we started the job/relocation search two months ago.

That's all the news from this week... here's to healthy bodies and a restful shabbat.