C'mon Hamilton, step up here!

We're down to the last few days of the Kraft Peanut Butter contest.  We've seen some amazing things happen---an article was published in the Spectator and the Mountain News, but still, The Night Raider lags in fourth place, the winning video showing twice as many votes as ours.  But there's still 3 days left to win this for Esme! Here's the articles from both newspapers:

Paying it forward with peanut power

Peanut Butter Contest The Kents, at right - Leslie and James and their children Honour, Afton, Verity, and Jairus, front right. They want to help out the Youngberg family, left - Tamara, Jason, their son William, and daughet Esme, front.

Cathie Coward/The Hamilton Spectator

Local acts of goodwill helped pay for Jairus Kent’s medical treatment. Now, the 10-year-old’s family hopes some goodwill of their own can help another child.

Jairus, 10, was born with Pierre Robin Sequence, which causes a cleft palate and underdeveloped jaw. Jairus is largely nonverbal, speaking at a 21-month-old level. Beginning Tomatis therapy to improve his audio and listening skills costs $5,000.

While applying to charities for assistance, Jairus’s parents Leslie and James Kent signed up for Kraft’s online contest encouraging people to display their love of peanut butter in a short video.

They entered because Jairus is a“peanut butter freak,” Leslie said, and the grand prize winner receives $10,000.

Two days before their video was named one of the 10 finalists, Mountain Citadel Salvation Army on Stone Church Road East surprised them with a fundraiser that helped cover most of the cost of starting Jairus’s Tomatis therapy. The Astley Family Foundation pitched in with a donation to cover the remaining costs.

That gave the Kents a chance at helping someone else.

If they win, the Kents will give the money to Tamara and Jason Youngberg to help their daughter, Esme, who also faces expensive medical treatments.

Tamara has been a big part of the Kents’ life as the midwife who delivered their four children. She operates Access Midwives in Stoney Creek, and the two mothers have remained close over the past decade.

Eight-year-old Esme was born with albinism and later developed epilepsy and autism. The cost of Esme’s autism treatment, at the renowned Son-Rise Program based in Massachusetts, is roughly $20,000, Tamara said.

“There’s such a strain on yourself when you’re trying to get that help for your child but aren’t able to because of financial restraints,” Leslie said.

Tamara resisted at first, telling Leslie she would think about her offer of help.

“But at the same time I don’t think she would take no for an answer,” Tamara said with a laugh.

She was hesitant to ask for help since she earns decent money, and took on a second job selling jewellery at house parties “so I can feel like I’ve worked for it,” Tamara said.

If they win the grand prize, Leslie says she’ll be thrilled.

“To have seen the joy (Tamara) has brought to people by bringing their children into the world, and then to see what’s happened with her and her own child … this would be really amazing.”

The whole situation has been overwhelming for Tamara, who says regardless of the outcome, the fact the Kents are willing to do this is remarkable.

“It’s my hope that one day, when my daughter has recovered, I could give to someone else in the same way,” she said.

You can vote for Jairus’s video, entitled TheNightRaider, by going to the PB&__ Video Contest atwww.kraftpeanutbutter.com. Voting closes Monday, Oct. 10.

Family hopes pantry raid video will help a friend

By Gord Bowes, News staff

The video is an exaggeration, but it’s not far off the mark, says Leslie Kent.

Her son, Jairus, really does sneak into the pantry for spoonfuls of peanut butter, but not usually under cover of the night sounding like a cat burglar.

“I’ll get up for breakfast and there will be a spoon stuck in the top of the peanut butter,” says Kent.

So when the mother of four saw a commercial back in June for Kraft’s Spread the Feeling video contest, she quickly knew they might have a winner.

“As soon as I saw it, I thought my son would be perfect for it,” says Kent.

They filmed the 33-second entry, which shows Jairus sneaking peanut butter out of the pantry of the family’s west Mountain home in the middle of the night, in just two takes.

The goal at first was to win the $10,000 prize to help pay for special therapy for Jairus, who was born with Pierre Robin sequence.

The condition, which resulted in a cleft palate and small lower jaw, has left Jairus with limited speech. The therapy is designed to help him speak clearly.

But between the time the Kent family entered the video contest and making it to the final 10, their church, Mountain Citadel of the Salvation Army, had raised the money for Jairus’s therapy.

Now they are hoping to win so they can donate the money to Kent’s friend and midwife, Tamara Youngberg, and her daughter Esme, who was recently diagnosed with epilepsy and autism.

“I think for someone who has given so much to Hamilton, (donating the prize money) is an easy thing to do,” says Kent.

Jairus attends Gordon Price, where his peers are encouraging him and voting in the contest daily to help him out.

As of Monday, the Jairus’s video, The Night Raider, trailed in fifth place. The Spread the Feeling contest ends Monday, Oct. 10.

Votes can be placed at kraftpeanutbutter.com.

Peanut Butter Update

WHAT an amazing day I've had.

First of all, we got our permits submitted.  Until that had happened, there was this weird, irrational feeling like it all wouldn't come together.  Like it all wasn't real.

Secondly, we sold our house.  It was on for less than a week and we've sold for MORE than our asking price. Lovin' that.  I'll chat more all about the house stuff later.

Thirdly, I had this craving for Little Caesars cheese-stuffed crazy bread, so James went out about 10:30.  He called me just before 11 to say that they didn't have any, and wouldn't make any because they were closing at 11.  Bummer.  He wanted to know if I'd settle for the regular crazy bread.  I said sure.  He came home a few minutes later with not one but FOUR bags of crazy bread.  Seems the girl there felt so badly for not having any stuffed bread that she gave us all the bread that was left....for FREE!

Fourthly, Jairus' video in the Peanut Butter contest has been named a FINALIST!  This means we are in the running for a $10,000 prize.  I have sent out emails and messages through every possible online means I can think of so you've probably heard all about it. (lol!)  However, if you haven't, please go to http://www.kraftpeanutbutter.com/en/contest/finalists/ and vote for him!  His video is called "The Night Raider".

As you've likely read earlier on this here blog, we entered Jairus' video into that to take a stab at winning the money to pay for his Tomatis therapy.  This past weekend however, all the funds needed were raised through the Garage/Bake Sale, Auction and BBQ fundraiser that the Quilting ladies put together.  Ever since I was contacted and told about the fundraiser, I had an idea about the contest, if by chance we should win.

There's this very special lady in my life.  I'm not going to name her, in case she'd rather not be named, but she has been with me, and helped me through two of the most terrible and stressful times in my life; the birth of my sons. (Update: yes, I checked with her, and she's ok with me mentioning their names)
6 weeks after she helped me deliver Honour, (yes, ok, she's my midwife) Tamara Youngberg gave birth to her own firstborn daughter, Esme.  (see her picture above)  I remember that she had been concerned on and off through her pregnancy: she kept noticing worrying things about the pregnancy, but we both figured it was just a case of 'the doctor doctoring herself' and finding things 'wrong' because of her vast knowledge of pregnancy.  Unfortunately, her gut had been right.
It took a few months, but Esme was eventually diagnosed with Albinism. With that, Tamara and her husband Jason have had to deal with many of the common accompanying issues of this congenital deficiency, but have also had to handle her further diagnoses of epilepsy and autism.  You can read an article about Esme here.
Tamara is now one of the moms I connect with often to share our latest therapy discoveries.  She became determined over a year ago to take Esme to the States to be a part of the Son-Rise therapy, a specialty therapy for autistic children pioneered by Barry Kaufman back in the 70's.  His son was autistic during a time when nobody knew what it was or what to do with children who had it.  The cost for this therapy is approximately 3-4X what we needed to raise for Jairus.
Despite her own dedicated fundraising through selling jewelry this past year, they have not reached their goal.  Still, they intend to follow through and take her at the end of next month, in any possible way.

I think you've probably figured out where I'm going with this.  If Jairus' video wins, we're going to be giving it to the Youngbergs.  She doesn't really know this; (Update: Um, yes, she does now) I joked about it last time we met for coffee.  She probably doesn't realize that I was serious; she said she would refuse it.  And I don't think she reads my blog, so she won't see all this.

So please vote everyday for Jairus' video, "The Night Raider".  I really want to help this precious family.

He's My Son

Hopefully, you've all noticed the link at the top of my sidebar. It's to a post about the Kraft Peanut Butter contest and how we hope to win it in order to send Jairus for some specialized therapy. Well, now there's something else happening. The ladies in my mom's quilting group at church were all talking last month about Jairus and the money it costs to send him to his therapies. My mom admitted that it was expensive. This is when they came up with the idea.
They wanted to hold a fundraiser and the ideas started flowing.  A garage sale.  A bake sale.  An auction (with, of course, a quilt). A BBQ.  Plans came flying thick and fast.  And now it's all in place.

On September 24th, from 8am to 2pm, all these things will be happening at my church, Mountain Citadel Salvation Army, in order to raise funds for Jairus to get his Tomatis Listening therapy.  A little about the therapy.

I first learned of Tomatis a number of years ago from a friend whom I would connect with every once in a while.  We both had children with special needs and would swap ideas about things we'd tried to help them in their development.  My friend had been especially impressed with the results her daughter showed after the Tomatis therapy.  I'm not expecting that Jairus will start spewing forth with words after this therapy, but it will strengthen and re-program his listening and focusing skills to better enable him to talk.  If you've read my blog for any length of time, you'll know that we're often looking out for therapies such as this.  For instance this past summer we tried some music therapy (why I waited so long is highly ironic and just plain weird, considering what I do).  He did fabulously with it.
The Tomatis therapy is offered at The Listening Centre in Toronto.  The program would take place over the span of 6 weeks: 2 weeks of active therapy involving 2-3 hour sessions daily, 2 weeks rest and then 2 weeks back in sessions again.  I would be driving Jairus in every day for the sessions.
I've recently been revamping Jairus' blog site, which was my original blog.  It's a little better organized now and if you would like to read more about what Jairus was born with and those early weeks of his life, read it here.
Finally, the quilting ladies asked me to make up a powerpoint presentation to show in church.  I put something together and James converted it to video.  Now you can see it too. :-)  Make sure your volume is up.

She does it again!

I was a little surprised when Honours teacher suggested we enter her in another competition only 2 weeks away from her first. We were planning to be camping for that weekend, so I wasn't sure how we would work it out, but fresh off the excitement of her first medal, I both really wanted her to do another competition, and was scared it was just a fluke and she wouldn't do well at another. We decided to try to get her to it.

In the meantime, I really wanted to get Honour a proper Highland dance outfit. I had hopes that I could do it before the next competition, the Cambridge Highland games, but figured it was wasn't very possible. I started looking online for what could be found secondhand, but didn't see much out there at this time. I sent an email to my cousin Claire, who danced for many years, to see if she still had any kilts and such. She wouldn't be able to find out for another week, so I took a chance and ordered an outfit from Tartantown. It arrived in 2 days and Honour was so pleased that she was going to look just like the other girls. :-)

We arrived at Flamboro Valley to camp with friends on Friday night. Knowing how excited the kids were to be camping, I suspected they wouldn't mind staying with our friends on Saturday morning, while we took Honour over to the competition. It was quite pleasantly only a 20 minute drive away.

Things looked much the same as the Embro games, just a different backdrop. We parked and made the trek from the makeshift parking lot through the various gates. We realized somewhere along the way that we had left our lawnchairs back in the camp. Fortunately, there were about three other families from our school of dance, so we bunked with them for the morning.

I had put Honours hair up before we left camp, so now all that was left was to get her into her outfit. I had checked multiple times over that I had brought everything needed. She looked great.

The competition was about 45 minutes late in starting. Then when it did, Honours group (Beginners 7) was first up, with Honour up on stage with the very first group. The piper played the familiar Highland Fling tune (as opposed to Embro) and Honour did well. About 15-20 minutes later they moved onto the Sword and Honour was again first up. There was some stalling and confusion as they placed the swords up on stage as there didn't seem to be enough for all the dancers. When they finally located another pair, they placed them in the spot Honour would be dancing. I was chagrined as all the other swords were slim and flat, while the pair set before Honour had a high, rounded hilt. Unfortunately, the dancers are supposed to be able to dance over whatever they are presented with, so while it didn't seem fair, there were no grounds to protest.

Sure enough, she nicked the top of the hilt a couple times which led her to actually step on the swords as she danced. But she kept going, and did really well despite that. She finished her dances a bit later with a try at a new dance called the Sean Trews. Her teacher Dianne didn't have any expectations that Honour would place with the Sean Trews, but wanted her to try it anyways, as she feels that competition really lights a fire under dancers to work hard.

By 12:30, I had Honour back into her outfit with her dancers card on a lanyard around her neck. (Learned that from the last competition). We were so thrilled when they called the numbers of those winning a medal for her group and she was included. Up she went, standing smartly in first position (also something we learned from the last competition) and waited for the announcer to begin...

I said later to Dianne that "if she's anything, she's consistent!", as Honour again was awarded a third place medal, which meant another stamp on her card, in the Highland Fling. We were so excited!

Now it appears we'll have a longer wait until another competition, as Dianne recommended one in Pickering on September 17th. I was again both pleased for the interval, so that Honour can really work up her dances, and disappointed to have to wait so long until another. Plus we'll have the added conflict of my Musikgarten classes starting up that day (if I get students) so we'll have to figure something out if she's to dance at that one.

Honour waiting to go on stage.

Up on her toes for the Fling

The Sword Dance

Waiting to see what she won.

(If any family would like to see a video of her getting her award or dancing the Sean Trews, just email me or leave a comment and I'll send you the private link. :-)

Honour's First Highland Dance Competition

In case you hadn't heard, Honour has been taking Highland dance from the Blackman School of Dance since last fall. I started thinking about it a couple years ago when the girls were interested in dance of some kind and I wasn't so thrilled with the idea of them going into ballet. My cousin did Highland dance for many years, and we do have some Scottish back on both sides of the family, so it was a natural consideration. I remember sitting with Honour and watching some videos on Youtube and she was quite interested and positive about the idea. So last fall we followed through and signed her up.

A couple months ago, we decided to enter her into a competition, upon her teachers recommendation. We almost ran into a bit of a crunch, as I didn't send off her registration for the Canadian Highland Dance organization (Scotdance) until the start of June. She needed a dance card to be eligible to dance and when the strike struck, her card was still en route. Fortunately, it arrived the day before the competition. (Phew!)

Honours teacher has been very positive about her progress and potential in Highland Dance, which of course we're very pleased about. I was happy to put her into a competition, because I think there are elements of competing that are good for kids to experience. Plus, it's like preparing a piece of music and having nowhere to perform it. It just loses some of it's appeal.

So yesterday was the day. I was up late the previous night getting her outfit ready, packing lunches and bags of all the paraphernalia we were going to need, as all four kids, plus Honours friend Tia were going. Then neighbours setting off fireworks at 3am didn't help matters. My mind started whirling again and between nerves and monitoring the clash between another neighbour that ran out to tell them off, I lost a good hour there. The alarm went off at 6am. Ugh.

As we drove, Honour was excited and giddy, telling us all how she wanted to win a First, a Second, a Third and a trophy. I tried to soften her expectations somewhat... :-)

The competition was taking place in Embro, which is about an hours drive west of us. It was happening as part of a larger Highland Games festival which attracts about 5000 people each year. We got in the gates, through admission and planted ourselves on some bleachers.

The competition started about 9:00am. Out of four possible dances Honour could have done, she was only entered into two of them, as the others weren't ready for competition yet. She would be dancing the Highland Fling and the Sword Dance. She was in the Beginners 7 group, which appeared to have about 18 girls entered.

I nearly goofed right at the start. We'd only seen one competition before, Honour and I, a few months ago when there was one happening in Ancaster. I had forgotten that they dance all the girls (I should say entrants; there were a few boys) through the same dance, all the age groups. Then when that is done, they all dance through the next dance. (Yes, it means you see and hear the same dance about 15 time in a row :-).

I had forgotten this, and even though there were groups up there dancing a different dance from Honours two, when they called the Beginners 7 group, I took her up to the ready tent.

Fortunately we realized the mistake and pulled her out before she got up on stage!

I had a severe bout of nerves for her as the Fling dances started and I didn't recognize the music. Honour has been practicing every day for the last two weeks or so (and close to everyday before that) with the help of a sticker chart on the fridge. But for the physical ability, I could dance those dances myself, I've heard them so many times! I knew that some girls might dance the various dances with slightly different steps from each other (making it difficult to focus on your own dance), but I didn't realize that it wouldn't be the same music. I was just sure this would throw Honour off completely, but she surprised me!

With just one tiny mis-move of her foot, she danced her Fling quite nicely. I was so relieved I could have cried. Over my life time, I have sung for thousands of people, and sometimes even that many at one time; none of these compared in how nervous I was for Honour.

By the time the Sword dance came around, I felt significantly better. She did great with the Sword, but touched it as she danced, a no-no. She would likely be out of the running for any medals because of that. I really didn't care: she had done it! Gotten up and danced in the sun in front of hundreds of people!

We got her out of her outfit after that to have some playtime. It was a clear shining day and the kids were anxious to get away from the bleachers for a while. We had some lunch with other dancing friends from the Blackman studio under a tent one of them had brought. The kids had lots of fun.

Soon after, one of the moms mentioned to me that Honour should get back into her outfit for the awards ceremony. I guess I hadn't really thought that she might win anything and had figured we would get her back into her outfit if we really needed to. It seemed I needed to. :-)

At 12:30 we made our way to the arena for the awards, as further festivities were happening out at the stage area during that time.

They started calling up all the little wee ones (4, 5 and 6 years old--soooo cute!) and they all got a prize for dancing. The best of the little ones were given medals for placing.

Suddenly Honours teacher came running over asking if we'd heard them call number 135. That was Honours number (which I had kinda forgotten). We hadn't; the sound system was not the best quality and was rather muddy sounding in the arena. I was confused, because I didn't realize that her entire group wouldn't be standing there: they would only be calling the numbers of the winners with the older dancers. Once they went up to the presenting area, then we'd find out what they'd placed in. I figured they would call them again and a few minutes later, they did. To our great excitement, they had called #135. "This means she's won something", said her teacher. I grabbed Honours hand and started around the back of the crowd to get to stage right where the dancers were lining up. I noticed that all the little girls were clutching their blue dancers cards. "Does she need her card?", I asked one of the ladies in charge. She answered affirmatively and I scurried off to my purse, thankful that I had it close on hand. I delivered it back to Honour before her line proceeded across the presenting area. Phew!

They gave out the awards for the first dance that Honour hadn't danced in. Then came the awards for the Fling.

First was awarded.

Second was awarded.

Third was called....#135. We all broke into cheers and claps!

Strangely though, the lady handing out the medals did not come over to Honour. Honour kept looking around with a slightly anxious look on her face, but did not say or do anything. A bit of commotion broke out amongst the other parents from our studio and the teacher. They had called #135, hadn't they? Why weren't they handing her the medal? I was fairly sure that the lady presenting had gone down the line and handed it instead to #145. Ohhh dear....

Fortunately, Honours teacher is extremely experienced and judges competitions herself. James had even seen some of the organizers consulting her during the course of the morning. She hurried herself over to the announcer and at a pause, discreetly inquired as to the true winner of 3rd place. The awards froze for a moment while the kerfuffle was sorted out.

In the end, the medal was taken away from #145 and given to the the true winner, Honour wearing #135. I was so relieved. I would have felt badly for poor little #145...(if she didn't already have a couple medals around her neck:-)

They went on to announce the Sword dance winners and the other dance that Honour hadn't competed in. The parents around us congratulated us all, and, as nearly all the Blackman Dancers placed in more than one dance each, were beaming themselves.

What a fabulous day! When's the next one!?!

Our little Peanut Butter Freak

I don't remember when it was that we discovered Jairus' deep and abiding addiction to peanut butter. It's been at least a few years, as this summer will mark 3 years that he's had his augmentative communication device (his talking computer) and when I was programing the All about Jairus page, I just couldn't resist...

My name is Jairus

I am 7 years old (at the time)

I have brown hair...

I like to eat peanut butter out of the jar.

I suppose I've always found that humorous because while I do like peanut butter, and thankfully we have no allergies in this family, the thought of pulling out a spoon and scarfing it down had never entered my mind.

And so this was why, when I saw the ads for the Kraft Peanut Butter contest, I immediately thought of Jairus and how many times I've caught him at the pantry eating PB out of the jar, found a PB covered spoon lying next to the PB in the pantry, or actually opened up the jar to find the spoon still stuck there (oops! caught in the act!) How, though, could we actually videotape him doing it?

Well, in the end, I had a vision for how his PB thievery could be caught on film and we set about doing it. I think it's absolutely hilarious! You can see it here.

I'll admit, I really hope, and think we have a chance of winning it. Maybe that's because he's just so darn-giggly cute, but maybe it's also because (and not that this is a criteria for winning) of why we want to win this.

As I'm sure all who are reading know, Jairus cannot speak. He does make sounds, they do sometimes sound like words, and we who have lived with him for 10 years can usually figure out what he's trying to say (usually). But we pray nightly over Jairus that the Lord will heal him and he will be able to speak someday.

To this end, we are in a constant search and battle to find and provide any solutions that will help. I've taken him to cranial sacral therapy, Turner's therapy (chiropractic), looked into Hyperbaric oxygen therapy. He's seen naturopaths, countless specialists, and of course, speech therapists. Today I'm taking him for an appointment at Blue Balloon, for a screening to determine if he'd benefit from music therapy. And last fall we went to Toronto and had an intake consultation at The Listening Centre, one of the few places in the world that offers Tomatis listening therapy.

I've been especially excited about this one, as my Musikgarten training last summer included information about the five foundations of the curriculum. One of them, ironically was the work and research of Dr. Alfred Tomatis. I hadn't known this before I headed off for the week of seminars and it was really amazing to find this connection; I had been introduced to Tomatis therapy a few years before, even contacted the centre the previous year, but hadn't yet followed through due to the great cost involved. It was going to be about $5000 for Jairus to take the 6 week course of daily listening therapy.

After we followed through with an appointment last fall, I really set about trying to pull the funds together. There were a number of charities recommended by the centre to help with the costs. One by one, we were turned down by them for various reasons--usually that they didn't help with such an 'unorthodox' therapy. (Tomatis has been around for at least 30 years, how long does it take to gain acceptance?) We did receive some help from the Jennifer Ashleigh Foundation and a bit more from our church, but the bulk of the money has remained out of our reach.

So this is what the money would go to, if Jairus' video should win. I'm kindof tickled that he could be getting this therapy due to his own terrible cuteness, his proclivity for peanut butter and the opportunity to show the world how sneaky he can be!

SO blessed...

The last five days or so have been very car-stress heavy.

We're old car owners. I would say Dave Ramsey car owners, but I've heard him say that he doesn't like people calling their clunkers DR cars because of course, he's advocating that if you do things right, in due time you will be driving a very nice car. Like he does. But I digress.

We buy 8-10 year old Hondas (only one exception and it taught us a good lesson) outright with cash and have been rather proud that we don't have car payments. The Hondas usually do us well and I still extol the virtues of our first Accord Wagon which was about 16 years old when we had it towed to the great junkyard in the sky, with nearly 700 000 KMs on it. I'd been hoping to get to 726K kms which was the dealership record where we took it for service.

We bought our first Odyssey in 2005 when we finally couldn't fit all our kids into the Wagon. We upgraded to a 2000 Oddy in 2008 and then just two months ago traded in the 2000 for a 2003 with about 216K kms on it from a little shop in Stoney Creek called Motormax. (Yes, I mention the name on purpose).

We were pretty gleeful for a few weeks....and then I went to turn the van on and noticed it had gone through a voice change. It was now revving a little lower than before and I was pretty sure I detected the sound of an exhaust system problem. We took a look at our warranty but after a good mechanic friend listened and told us what he thought was wrong, we were chagrined to find it was a part not covered by the warranty. Of course.

Then about a week later I went to put my key in the ignition and it wouldn't go in. Numerous tries finally got it in, but it would not turn. This began a pattern that would continue up until now, that each time I tried to start the van I'd have to give it about 10 running starts to get the key in to the 'sweet spot' that would let it turn. My brother who owns a CRV said that a similar problem he experienced a while ago proved to be some loose doohickeys inside that get jammed up.

We had the repair of these items on our budget todo list when last week I started to notice a few odd things when I shifted from park to drive. It would hesitate a bit and then give a jolt before driving off normally. Then after running some errands on Friday afternoon, I was coming back into our neighbourhood (driving around 40km/hr) when for a brief moment the engine revved quite high--without my pushing on the gas any farther, and then returned to normal. I was concerned, but also had stuff to get done and put it out of my mind.

Going back out again a couple hours later, I was just about to get on the parkway near my house when the high revving happened again, but for longer, and this time was accompanied by a loss of power to the wheels. Every time I pushed the gas, it would rev far higher than I was pushing, and sometimes gave me spurts of power, but mostly not. I got off an exit before I needed and hoped I could coax it along a side road to my destination. No such luck. And having forgotten my cell phone at home, there I was knocking on some strangers front door.

After calling hubby, I went back out and restarted the van. I managed to get it the few blocks to my church parking lot, with two or three stops to restart it along the way.

James came and got me (I won't go into how this forced an immediate overhaul of all our plans for that evening) and tested it out around the lot. (What is it with guys never trusting their wives description of car problems?) only to have it completely lose power whilst not in a parking space. Mrs. Muscles here had to help push it into place.

We went home and pulled out the warranty. Though we've never had a transmission problem, it sounded like what I've heard one is like. We breathed a sigh of relief that the warranty, still one full month from it's time limit would cover a transmission.

That sigh caught in my throat however when James drew his brows together and asked me how many kms we had put on the van since we bought it. I wasn't sure...but 45 minutes sitting staring at my dash while waiting for James was giving me a sickly feeling that it was more than the 3000km limit on the warranty. James went back over in his civic to wait for the tow truck...and confirmed that we were 278 kms over the warranty.

The garage we took it to didn't have a diagnosis until Monday. He apparently called the warranty company and gave it his best shot, but nope, they weren't covering any of it. It was going to cost $2900. I could have cried right there in my kitchen. And that wouldn't even fix the exhaust system or the ignition. I would still be driving a van that sounded like David Meece's mother. (Her car that is...you have to have heard him tell the story in concert...hilarious).

As all this was going on, we were getting into the nitty gritty of buying the property. (Have I mentioned how the girls bring us their quarters and nickels and want to put it towards 'the poperty'? Melt ma heart...) One thing we were scheduled to do on Friday night was meet with our realtor and sign our first offer. We still did this, and by mid Saturday we heard back of a counter of about 5K higher than our offer. We were pretty thrilled, but then the issue of whether or not HST would apply came up. Ugh. After checking around various sources and talking to the lawyer who did our wills, we discovered that it would be applied. So last night we sent back a new offer that would include the HST.

Our savings, which had looked quite adequate to cover a thousand dollar down payment (due upon acceptance of the offer) was now looking a little scary in light of a $3000 car repair. Again I had thoughts of 'are we nuts' to be considering buying a lot and building.

This morning brought some good news though. James called the warranty company and pled our case personally. It was an interesting turn of events that led to them agreeing to pay about 40% of the repair.

When we had first found the exhaust problem, James called and asked about the repair being covered. He was told to take it into the garage that they dealt with and get an estimate and they would go from there. Well, after our mechanic friend told us what the part was, we knew it wasn't covered and so didn't bother taking it in. This was noted on our file at the warranty company though.

The guy James was talking to looked back and saw this note. He asked James what had happened with that and why it wasn't followed up on. James told him the plain truth about finding out it was a part not covered. This guy was so impressed that we had not tried to lie and push the repair through as one that is covered, that he offered on the spot to cover nearly half of the repair of our transmission. I was pretty blown away. And thrilled. :-)

So, at the end of this long story, what I really wanted to say was that after reading a blog post by Simple Mom yesterday, I decided to read it to my girls this morning for their geography lesson. I followed a link from that post to an amazing story about Compassion, whom we sponsor a little girl through. As I read the Simple Mom post to my girls and watched their little jaws drop at the sight of the room this Philipino family of 5 had to live in, I was convicted anew about taking for granted the blessings I enjoy in this country. As we traced the route it would take to fly from our country to theirs on our atlas, I thought about how my ancestors might not have come to Canada from the various countries that represent my heritage. Today, I could very well be sheltering my four children in one room the size of a walk-in closet. I know we read that kind of rhetoric all the time, and click away from it often when we see it on TV, but every once in a while it seems to really hit home. You know what I mean?