{"id":9714,"date":"2024-02-04T23:40:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-05T07:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/?p=9714"},"modified":"2025-11-06T10:30:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T18:30:13","slug":"2024-february-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/2024\/02\/04\/2024-february-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"2024 – February part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Hey there,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What a way to start a month (that is without a vehicle).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We decided that as much as we would love to have great gas mileage on a car, we simply cannot afford to have that at this time. We decided to return to buy a Ford. Then if there are any issues my dad would be able to help out, and when buying he would be able to help with checking things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We went to Chuck Colvin who is a local dealer (we had to rent a car to do so) and checked out the 2011 Explorer they had for sale with 120k miles. This isn’t something we would be in love with, but it at least would help in the financial area. Here is a photo below of the kids in the showroom with an old Ford they had on hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We agreed to buy the vehicle as long as certain repairs were done. There were some dents on the car, scratches, and the front end didn’t sound good at all, so they were going to be working on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We left feeling a bit lukewarm about the whole thing. We paid no money down, and they told us that if, for any reason, we didn’t want to do the deal, just give them a call and they’d cancel everything with no hassle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since we had a rental car, we decided to go to the Portland Winter Light Festival. We have been going for nearly every year they have had it. It’s a fun event. Here are some photos below:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are more photos on Instagram, but you get the idea with these. The following day, I took a photo of Ezra while he was sleeping, with his first stuffed animal, Leo. The kid is pretty sweet. That afternoon, we went to a local event for the Chinese New Year. I grabbed a photo from that and added it to the mix.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interesting turn of events. What is it? You may ask. I’ve kept looking for other Explorers for sale, and I found a 2020 Explorer with 87k miles on it for quite literally 4 or 5 thousand more than the 2011 we found. The main difference is that it was certified pre-owned and had nothing to fix up. Instead of local, this was located in Fresno, CA. After asking about the car, they said they would hold it if we came down to see it and buy it in person. Hmm… road trip? I think so. So we called the dealership that had the 2011 and canceled the transaction, then made plans to visit my parents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That night, we were off again to the PDX WLF (Portland Winter Light Festival). We went to see as much as we could. I think we saw quite a bit. If you see the photo of the globe with the hand in the water? Yeah, that was Geeka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was thirsty. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So first, he put his hand on it and brought it to his mouth. I said, “No buddy, you don’t drink that water.” I turned around to see Ara and Lijah doing the same. “Ugh, guys, come on,” I said<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I turned back around, and this time Geeka took his tongue and laid it on the ball covered in water. He saw me and immediately started bursting out in laughter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crazy kids! I love them, but man, they are crazy sometimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

until next time<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just Pray<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hey there, What a way to start a month (that is without a vehicle). We decided that as much as we would love to have great gas mileage on a car, we simply cannot afford to have that at this time. We decided to return to buy a Ford. Then if there are any issues…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9717,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/feb1-pdxwlf.jpg?fit=1118%2C839&ssl=1","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7447,"url":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/2015\/04\/30\/2015-april\/","url_meta":{"origin":9714,"position":0},"title":"2015 – April","author":"me@jshox.com","date":"April 30, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Hey We were invited to go to the Phoenix Zoo (thank you Hilary) as guests of our friend. We had a blast. It was pretty fun seeing Arabella react at seeing all of these animals she never usually gets a chance to see. Hilary also took time out of her\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/april4.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/april4.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/april4.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/april4.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/april4.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":723,"url":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/2008\/07\/28\/723\/","url_meta":{"origin":9714,"position":1},"title":"HeyBeen a little busy lately\u2026","author":"me@jshox.com","date":"July 28, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"HeyBeen a little busy lately so I thought I would hop on here and do a quick update.First off, I sold my car.\u00a0 I listed it on Ebay and it sold--- FINALLY.\u00a0 I have been waiting to sell my car for quite a few months now.\u00a0 I have been wanting\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9921,"url":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/2024\/05\/09\/2024-may-part-1\/","url_meta":{"origin":9714,"position":2},"title":"2024 – May part 1","author":"me@jshox.com","date":"May 9, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Mayday! I feel like this. It's been beautiful outside - Mt. Hood has been putting on a show for all to take in. Also, for the first time since we have lived in Oregon, we switched up our eye doctor. 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They didn't install the nameplate correctly (much lower than it should be). Also, there were some items in the trunk that were installed incorrectly. Really poor service. I would never recommend Sanderson Ford Lincoln for any auto body work.\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/aug18-back.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/aug18-back.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/aug18-back.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/aug18-back.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/aug18-back.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3416,"url":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/2018\/03\/31\/2018-march\/","url_meta":{"origin":9714,"position":4},"title":"2018 – March","author":"me@jshox.com","date":"March 31, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Changes are comin' - I can feel it in the wind! 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I got to sleep in until about 11 and that was really nice compared\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/2003\/09\/08\/9\/#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9714"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11112,"href":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9714\/revisions\/11112"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}