Dash Lights

I had this last Saturday off and I wanted to do something productive with my time. I decided to change some of the bulbs in my truck’s instrument panel. A few of the bulbs went out a while ago and I have been meaning to do it for a quite some time now. Also my check engine light is on and has been on since I bought the truck. The check engine light is on, because the oil pressure gage broke and the truck thinks (if a truck could think) that there is no oil in the engine. The previous owner put in a second oil pressure gage but did not tie it into the computer. I would like to live along the Wasatch front soon and I know that if a vehicle’s check engine light is on it fails an emissions test automatically. I decided to fix the problem by taking out the light bulb in my check engine slot. I took everything all apart and replaced all the bulbs with new ones and everything works great now.

The first step is to take off all the bolts on the bottom of the kick plate. You will need a 7 mm socket for this job.

Then remove the kick plate. There are bolts at the bottom, but the top is held in with some push clips. They are inserted at a downward angle, so you have to lift up and out to get it off.

Next remove the radio housing. It does not have any bolts holding it in, just push clips. Use two flat head screw drivers to get under one side and pull it off. Don’t worry you will not break it.

Next remove the plastic cover that goes over your instrument panel. There are three screws at the top of the panel and two at the bottom.

Remove four screws that hold the instrument panel in place. Once again they are 7 mm heads.

Remove the entire instrument panel and unplug the three wire connections on the back. Remember where they go. It shouldn’t be too difficult; they are all different sizes and will only fit back into their proper holes.

Then on the back of the panel you will find all the lights. Twist to remove each bulb. I recommend replacing all the bulbs, since you do not want to do this all over again next week.

The final step is to put it all back together. Hope you remember how. It took about an hour or so and was kind of fun. The best part is that I could have spend $20 at the auto parts store buying the light bulbs, but I went to my work and bought the bulbs from them for $1.75.

Happy Birthday to Me!!!

It started out like any other day, Thomas off to work, laundry to do, and the apartment needing to be cleaned. I met Thomas for lunch at the park during his break from work. It was quick but still fun. On the way home Seth and I stopped and did our weekly grocery shopping. When we got home we checked the mail. There were two packages in there for Thomas but nothing for the birthday girl. Oh well, it is still fun to open Thomas' mail. I called Thomas to ask and he said they were my birthday presents. He told me I could open them. What could they be?

HANNAH MONTANA CDS!!!
NO WAY!!!
Thomas is always making fun of Miley Cyrus.
What a total surprise.
Now I can spice up the house work with Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus!!!

Disneyland

We saw many different Disney friends but only got a picture with Goofy. We did not want to wait in the lines for the others. We took Seth on all the rides that he was able to go on. They were all enjoyable and we had a great time.

We went to a 3D Bug's Life show that was quite funny.

We got to ride on King Tritan's Carousal.

Here we are on Tom Sawyer's Steam Boat

Since Seth is still too short for all the big rides, we took turns sitting out with him.

Autopia was fun, but the gas pedal was very stiff and difficult to push down. My leg was tired by the end of the one lap they let you go on. Thomas had a good car, but my car died three times. Everytime I let off the gas it died. One second after it shut off, it started back up again automatically.

We also had a great time at the beach while in California. The waves were really strong, so Seth mostly played on the beach. He kept putting the sand in his mouth. I am still finding it in his diapers. Thomas and Zack just had to bury Seth.

We really enjoyed ourselves and look forward to going back next year with Thomas' family.

Seth's Birthday

Seth will be a year old on the 22nd of this month.

We decided to have a little birthday party on Sunday.

Here Seth is enjoying his first piece of Birthday cake.

Thomas was hoping that it would cause more of a mess.

Now for the present.

It is a Cosmo Mobile. We found it at DI for one dollar.


Thomas just had to paint it white and put a Y on it.

It would not be complete without the Cosmos lisence plate.

Car Trouble

About three weeks ago we were parked at Amy Jo’s house and the land lord (Rick) backed into our drivers door. Leaving a few dents but Thomas said that he would be able to pull them out himself so he went to YouTube to learn how. It said “Body Shop Secrets”. In order to remove dents they use dry ice or compressed air. So we gave it a try….. It did work a little but did not remove the dents as much as we needed. So we decided that we would need to take it to a body shop to have the dents taken out. Rick suspected that it would cost about $600 to get it taken care of and he wanted to just pay out of pocket and not claim it to his insurance.

Thomas went to 3 different body shop places and was told that they would need to change to whole outside panel because the metal was to stretched to put it back the way it was. It would be between 1400-1700 dollars. WOW!!

Rick reported it to Allstate, so we went there to get it assessed. They agent looked at the different options and decided it would be cheaper to put a refurbished door on instead of just the new paneling. So that is what we did but Thomas did not want someone else’s used door when ours worked just fine. The insurance also paid for us to have a rental car while our car was getting fixed.
We needed our car to go a family reunion in Logan so we did not take our car in until the 7th of July and it took 3 days to change out the door. It was a lot of fun to drive a brand new Hyundai Sonata with less than 500 miles on it. It even had XM radio.
Friday morning they called and said that my car was ready. I did not want to give the rental back but I was excited to have my car fixed. We took the rental back and they gave us a ride to the body shop but they were all out to lunch. So….they told me I could keep the rental car and to come back in a hour and they would give me another ride over to the body shop, but it had to be a different car because they just rented the Sonata to another person. Seth and I got to drive a 2008 PT cruiser. It was not as nice but still fun.

So we get our car back and the door looks good but it does not sound good. When I open the door the latch mechanism is a lot louder than the others. Also the window still pops when to roll it up. So Tuesday after Thomas got off work we went back and they looked at it and fixed the problem.
We take it home and the window works perfectly but the two drives side doors sound worse. So we took it to them again and they adjusted the doors again. This time we tested them out while we are still there and they sounded so much better and did not need extra force to shut. We think that our problems are all fixed. We hope that this last time will be the last time that we have to see their ugly mugs.
Well today the back drives side door will not open at all. We pushed form the inside, pulled from the outside. Nothing! Back to the Body Shop L I will let you know if anything else needs to be adjusted. What a Headache.

Zion's National Park

This last Monday Thomas had the day off so we decided to take a trip to Zion. We had planned to leave by 7:30 but we did not make it out of the house until 8:45. It was nice to sleep in.

At Zion they have a shuttle system that takes you to all of the different sites you can see. We chose to hike up to Angels landing but we did not make it all the way. We mainly planned to go as far as Walter's Wiggles. It would have been to much to carry Seth all the way to the top.

I stopped and had to waited while Seth and Thomas went up to the wiggles. The heat was just to much and we did not have enough water for the temperature.

They took this picture once they got to the top.

This is the picnic that we had just out side the park. We had a squirrel that wanted to eat our food but we scared him away.
After lunch we went back into the park. We went to the museum and watched a short film about Zion and its people. We went on one last little trail to see emerald ponds.

We let Seth do some walking and he had a great time.

The water running into the pond come out of this cliff side.

Back at the bottom we found some shade and removed our shoes for a short time before heading back to the car.

As soon as we were back on the road Seth was out. He had a fun day but was glad to be headed home.