Life With Lani: Changes

Seriously, I do feel bad that I haven't been posting much lately. I'm blaming the fact that I'm still having to work a decent amount of overtime at the hospital plus try and keep up with Mira plus try and pay attention to Mark plus try and get up to Park City to ski every week. I just can't believe the ski season is almost over!! It feels like it just barely started. I'll be sad when we can't go skiing anymore, but it will be nice to have that extra day every week back to get things accomplished again.

But in some ways it's been a good thing that I've been working overtime because we have a new addition that we need to afford. Since I graduated from college 5 years ago (dude - it's really been that long?) I've driven a 2007 Toyota RAV4. I bought it for myself when I had my nursing job set up, I was graduating and was fairly certain I was going to pass the NCLEX on the first try, and it was really the first car I'd chosen for myself. I'd had a couple of clunkers since I got my license that were able to get me from Point A to Point B fairly consistently but I wanted something more reliable and nicer-looking and not as prone to breaking down every few weeks. So, I found this RAV4 and I've been in love with it ever since I got it.

However, it hasn't been without some issues. A big reason why I got it was so that when I was driving to and from work I would actually be able to drive to and from work. I've said this a million times already but I'll immortalize it again here: Who in their right mind thought it was a good idea to put a Level I Trauma Hospital halfway up a mountain side in freaking Utah??? And not just a Level I Trauma Center, there are actually two Level I Trauma hospitals right next to each other halfway up a mountain side in Utah, and one of them is the only freestanding pediatric hospital for 5 states. I mean, come on. You really couldn't think of a better place to put these hospitals? It was almost bad enough this winter to make me consider transferring to a different hospital that's in the middle of the valley right off a freeway exit. Anyway, I figured a Toyota would be great for this mountain snow driving. Well, most of the time it was, except that we discovered the 4WD shuts off if you go faster than 25 mph. I still don't know why. And I'll admit that I like creature comforts and techie gadgets and stuff, so I was starting to think it'd be nice to upgrade to something newer, but when I've basically had to do zero maintenance on the RAV4 since I got it (besides oil changes and tire rotations, all that car has ever needed from me was a new set of tires once and new brake pads once), well, it was hard to think seriously about getting a new car.

But it's fun to look and it would be nice to get a car Mark wouldn't be embarrassed to be seen in. (He has a Ford F150 pickup - we got it for towing trailers, which is great, but for commuting around town and such it really isn't practical, so we always used my car.) Mark did a bunch of research and we test drove a few cars (a couple of BMWs and a Lexus) but we just weren't sold on them. Then a couple weeks ago we came across this:

Originally we weren't thinking very seriously about a Mercedes because they're so expensive, but to make a long story short, we got the deal of the century on this car. It was definitely in our price range, all the reviews we could find on it raved about how well it handles off-road and in sub-optimal conditions (bingo!), it definitely had plenty of creature comforts and techie gadgets... And oh my gosh, it drives like a dream! I'll still miss my RAV4 but man, I sure do love my new car!! The only problem is if/when it breaks down it's going to be really expensive to fix... But we're hoping since it's a Mercedes it won't break down that much. Now I look forward to driving places! Love love love.

Our 2008 Mercedes Benz ML550.

Anyway, on to the real reason for this blog. Miss Mira definitely has her moments when she's a total brat but we think most of the problem is she still isn't talking and so she gets really frustrated when she can't tell us what she wants and we can't guess. But otherwise she's so much fun and definitely a little diva. She's already getting into princesses so I've found that if I want her to do something (like brush her hair) and she doesn't want to do it, I can avoid a tantrum by saying we need to get Princess Mira's hair looking pretty so she can wear her crown. So then she's more cooperative and she's even learned how to bow and curtsy - oh my, cutest thing ever! She is convinced she's a princess and is going to have long hair like Rapunzel.

Now that the weather is warming up (intermittently, welcome to Utah) she's definitely wanting to spend lots of time outdoors again, which is fine by me! She loves to try and play basketball or football with some kids that live in the neighborhood (and they're awesome enough to let her try and join in for awhile), and then one day she found a scooter. I think we're going to need to get her a scooter more her size and skill level.