Drive-thru prayers

We almost turned around to get a picture of this. People were on the side of the road holding up signs such as “Lost, get directions” and what-not. Then we see what’s going on, a local church is offering drive-thru prayers, and there was actually a line of people in this drive-thru. It’s only a matter of time before they team up with other drive-thrus. I’ll take my McPrayer supersized.

Edit: Here’s proof:

We went to a GIANT $ grand opening today (that’s the store’s name, GIANT $). I guess they used to be a dollar store, but they’re now a $1.09 store. The ad (which had the wrong address, 1328 is NOT 13128) made it sound great with a clown, face painting, balloons, ice cream, etc. Well they ran out of ice cream, and had one person kinda dressed as a clown doing balloons and face paintings. Thomas wouldn’t be still for a painting so he just had a balloon. We got some cheap chinese toys for him.

My project today was to change the transmission fluid in our van. The old fluid looked like old motor oil. Found two coolers, one said it was an oil cooler, the other wasn’t labeled. Figured it wouldn’t be the oil cooler (I mean, it’s called transmission fluid, not transmission oil) so I disconnected the other one. It was red and smelled like transmission fluid (which was odd, since the dipstick had brown fluid on it). Started the van up and let it pump out what should have been six quarts of fluid, but only seemed like one or less (yes, the manual says to disconnect the hose and run the van for a minute to pump out all the old transmission fluid). Well, the fluid level didn’t change, tried to figure out what went wrong…and noticed I was out of power steering fluid. Doh!

So I reconnected that, disconnected the hose from the oil cooler, and compared how the oil looked and smelled (dark like the transmission fluid, not nice and clear like the new motor oil). With Jeannie’s help (she manned the ignition and shift lever) we got the fluid out. Put back in five quarts, and had the level perfect (it takes 8.5 quarts, but you’ll only get about six out). Then noticed the dipstick was jamming and not going all the way in (because it accidentally went in smoothly once). Went ahead and drove it about ten miles or so to get it up to temp (to accurately measure the level), then back home and siphoned out about two quarts.

Oh, and I found out the power steering fluid is nearly impossible to find, even at a Kia dealership. After some googling, saw that people were being told that the Kia SP-III transmission fluid was the same as PSF-III power steering fluid. Well both are dyed red, and both smelled like transmission fluid, so I just put in almost a quart of transmission fluid for the power steering. Made some weird sounds until the air got out of the lines, and seems fine now.

I’ve just registered TheTannerFamily.com and moved all the old posts over to the new site. If you’re reading this, you’re already at the new site, so enjoy!

As many of our long-time readers know (hello Mom and Dad and Jeannie’s sister), our Saturn station wagon has had problems since we bought it. It was still drivable, and made several long distance trips (to visit family and back, and add in all the driving around while visiting, is between 350-400 miles). We’ve been looking for a good deal for a while, and didn’t just buy the first thing we could afford. I figured if the car broke down, we’d have it towed somewhere (we have roadside assistance) and heck, the RV is a vehicle right?

Well, we found a 2005 Kia Sedona on eBay, did the Buy-It-Now on March 24th, and picked it up this past Sunday (March 29th). Yesterday my wife asked if the car should make a loud sound after the key was out, said it sounded like the fan was still running. I asked what the temperature was, she said it was fine that morning but didn’t look at it that afternoon (argh!). Coolant was a bit low so I top it off, tell her maybe she should take the van this morning, but she figures it’ll make it since it’s just 9 miles away. Well I get a call about 15 minutes later saying it started to overheat. Long story short, I pack up the kids in the van, pick up Jeannie, and drop her off at her work. Then back to the RV, hook up the tow dolly, back to the car, hook it up, bring it back, and disconnect everything.

So, we got the van just in time, and the car probably kicked the bucket about the time she was pulling into the rv lot last night. Still, she was less than 15 minutes late to work, and we have another vehicle that can be used now.