A New Van in the Driveway

We have been enjoying some of the most pleasant weather! Some days are still sort of hot, but the mornings are cooler with a hint of fall crispness in the air. Bill Chatman has been cutting tobacco and the Pinsons have been combining corn. I just wish the grass would slow down a bit.

WOW, NINE YEARS! Can you believe it? As of last Thursday the Swann Family News is nine years old. I didn't know I had it in me!

TRADING IN. Our old van has served us well, but it was beginning to show it’s age. Vicki have been researching and shopping online for the past two or three weeks and she stumbled on a good deal. We traded vehicles this afternoon.

As a tribute to our old faithful van, we bought it in 2004. It was a 2002 Toyota Sienna with about 20,000 miles at the time. We’ve driven an additional 120,000 miles in the eight years we had it.

Our new van is a 2009 Sienna. It’s a silver gray and has 31,000 miles, and we’re looking forward to it getting us through the high school years.

A LITTLE CULTURE GOES A LONG WAY. Last weekend Vicki and I got the chance to steel away on a date. We went to see Much Ado About Nothing at the Centennial Park bandshell in Nashville. I never knew this, but each fall the Nashville Shakespeare Festival produces a different Shakespeare play. This has been going on for quite some time.

What was interesting was their adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing. First of all, they turned it into a musical. Then they changed the setting to be a story about soldiers coming home from World War II. I'm guessing most of the dialog was kept from the original script with a few lines updated to reflect events of the 1940s, but it was actually hard for us to follow the Shakespearian English. Nevertheless, we did keep up with the gist of the story and had a wonderful evening.

I MOVED THE TURTLE. Vicki kept seeing a turtle under one of our apple trees. I had never noticed it. It was quite a while before she said anything to the rest of us about it, but she kept wondering if the poor thing had died over there.

One day we were all walking to the van when she mentioned it. That's when one of the kids cleared up the mystery. "Oh Mom. That's one of our basketballs that rolled over there." They never bothered to crawl under the low branches to get it back." I retrieved it the next time I mowed the yard and now Vicki misses her "pet."

NOT A TRUE WAND. The boys are into reading the Harry Potter books. Nate is one book behind Ben. (As a matter of fact, Ben has to read 40 books for school this year and these books, thick as they are, count for two each.)

Naturally, the world of Harry Potter spills over into their play. They found some cool looking sticks out in the yard and instantly they have wands. The other day Ben and Nate were discussing the various spells from the Potter world at the kitchen table when Vicki asked, “Have you had any luck getting those spells to work?” After a bit of a pause Ben said,” No, we don’t have access to anything like unicorn hair.”

MISS CAT IS GONE. Miss Cat mysteriously disappeared earlier this week -- just when the boys were starting to enjoy her. Her kitten is still here though, and is much braver now that he doesn't have the companionship of his mother.

I think we're going to name the kitten Dusty. He is a pretty gray color with hints of tiger stripes, but also because he got bold and came into the house the other night. Then when he realized where he was he got scared and hid under my desk where it's practically impossible to clean with a broom or vacuum so when we dug him out he had several dust bunnies attached.

Joe