New Fridge

About a week ago, Stace and I were walking through Sears past the appliances, and I mentioned that we should have a new refrigerator on our radar. After all, ours was 12 years old.

Four days later, I spent some time cleaning out both the fridge and freezer. Some 90 seconds after I'd finished, I smelled the distinct odor of a burning electrical part.

Stace pulled the plug and found the culprit, but replacing it would cost $100 (not too bad) and take at least a week to arrive (very bad). I did some online research and found that for about $500, we could get a new fridge comparable to what we'd had. I then looked through dozens of Craigs List postings to see if I could take that same money and get a much better refrigerator.

Someone in the San Fernando Valley was posting a nice Samsung bottom-freezer model with a few nice bells and whistles for $550. They'd owned it 18 months but had moved and needed a smaller one. The same model was still selling on the Samsung Web site for $1,300. Bingo.

Our friend Rigo met us at the seller's house on Friday afternoon with his big truck (and his strength - there was no way I could have helped Stace get this 70-inch fridge into a truck!).

As you can see, it was a tight fit through the doorway. I should have taken a photo of the back porch it was on when we bought it - it took quite a while for Rigo and Stacey to figure out how to safely get it from the tiny porch to the truck bed.

This was all quite a process for us, and we're so thankful to Rigo for giving up his evening. Stace and I left Valencia at 4:30, got home after 7, and weren't able to leave for dinner until 8, after getting the new fridge in and old one out.

Thankfully, my parents had already planned to take the girls that day to Disneyland, so they were tagging along in boredom. They were big helpers, especially Cora, with getting the fridge cleaned and filled with food Saturday.

On Sunday, we went to The Container Store in Pasadena to buy a new trash/recycling bins for the kitchen. Afterwards, we found a fun sushi place for dinner, with a long list of $2 and $3 items.

We shared dumplings, a barbecue beef bowl, a shrimp taco, some sushi rolls, chicken udon noodle soup, and a beer, all for about $20. Yum!

I will have to make udon noodle soup soon! Both girls loved it, especially Violet. She loved trying to pick up the noodles with the chopsticks.