Valentine's Day and Replacement Items

So I got a new camera a couple of weeks ago and have been playing with all of the special settings. Guess what I was learning how to use when I took this series of pictures:

That's right . . . the "smile detection" feature. That last picture's a little scary -- looks like I'm trying hide an inside-out Boston creme doughnut behind my purse. I wasn't, though. There was no need -- the doughnut was already in my stomach.

The camera also has a "twilight" feature, which really comes in handy when you are on your Valentine's date with your husband and are killing time until your food comes:

You know you've been married for 14 years when, on your Valentine's date with your husband, your husband is more interested in taking pictures of his wine glass than he is of taking pictures of you. Our date was really fun, though. We went to Bonefish Grill and then to Ruth Eckerd Hall, where we saw the play Young Frankenstein. Dez and Heidi harassed me about the completely un-romantic date I had planned, but I would note that Heidi and her husband ignore Valentine's Day altogether and Dez just has issues. Joe loved his Valentine's date surprise (I didn't tell him where we were going until we were on the way there) and we had a great time.

Since I last blogged (not counting the Otter post), our family has come to a decision about school for next year. We're going to homeschool Casey -- so my Mom Cave is going to become a school room in addition to being the laundry room/sewing room/library. The Mom Cave is big, but not quite big enough for all of those uses, so I probably won't be able to put an espresso bar and mani/pedi station in there like I originally planned, which is a disappointment. But school is more important, I suppose, and if I have any time left in my days between schooling, working, laundry, and barely cleaning my house, I'll have more to blog about. Yay!

Also since I last blogged, we had (yet another) engine put into our Expedition. The original replacement engine we purchased to put in a few months ago had several problems, so the warranty covered a replacement for the replacement. So the first replacement came out:

And the new replacement went in -- along with a new torque converter, water pump, and who knows what else that Howell (our mechanic friend) did not want to tell me because everytime he said, "looks like we're also going to need a new ____" -- I screwed up my faced and hissed at him. But the car is running like a dream now.

Except that the fan for the a/c doesn't stop running when you take the key out of the ignition and there's that random beeping whose cause we can't seem to track down.

Whatever -- so long as people on the sidewalk don't drop flat to the ground anymore when we drive by to avoid what they think is machine gun fire coming from our car.