LPG tank and snow tires poor Californian Chevy is adjusting :)

After driving around Poland for six months with only a gasoline burning American truck, we made the decision to convert our Chevy to a hybrid. For my American friends who complain about high gas prices, we pay around $6.78 per gallon of gasoline in Poland. I made my truck a hybrid,and it now has a 100 liter LPG tank. The cost of LPG comes to around $3.32 per gallon which would put it more in line with that we were paying for gasoline in California. It cost us about $1,600 to do, which I think is good deal and will definitely save us more in the long term. I don't drive as much as what I did in the US, but the $150 fill-up was pretty painful and has been financially draining. Our Chevy is doing great with the new tank and doesn't have any loss of power while burning LPG.

I have also purchased my first set of snow tires. The new tires cost about $1,200 and was by the way a family and friends price! For my San Francisco Bay Area friends snow tires are only necessary if you have a jacked up pickup truck and you want it to look even bigger and more cool, but for my Polish friends snow tires are necessary if you want to drive anywhere in the winter. On the first real snow-day I picked up Lydia driving in what I would consider near white-out conditions without snow tires. It was a very slow, slippery and tense drive for only being about a mile, or two. Large parts of California would have been shut down in that mess and many places closed, but in Poland it's just another school day so it's better to be prepared. The snow season appears to be over for the year but I will probably wait a few more weeks before I swap out my snow tires for regular ones. Last year we had a heavy snow that came just before Easter and I really don't want to be stuck spinning around because I was impatient. I gave Chevy a bath the other day by taking her to one of those self-service car washes where you get to play with the pressurized sprayers and choose water and soap and wax to wash away the filth and give a shine. Beastie came out looking good and I was told that I really need to do it more often or face the consequences. Beastie by the way is what we call our Chevy because she is much bigger than most of the cars in this country and we have a hard time parking her :) Most of the trucks in this country which are made by American companies or are brought from the US have camper shells on them, I would like to take mine off to give Beastie a more original look but I have to figure out where I can put a big ass camper shell without trashing the yard. The other option would be to rent space somewhere to put the camper shell, but of course I don't want to spend a whole lot of money doing that. Well things are going well and we are all keeping busy, I promise more pictures will be coming to keep you feeling like you are here with us :)

Spring is back and so is my blog!

The snow and ice have been gone for a few weeks now and new plants and flowers are popping up all over the place. For someone who enjoys gardening and watching things grow I really enjoy living in a place that has four seasons. To translate for my friends living in the San Francisco Bay Area this means that white fluffy stuff falls from the sky and doesn't disappear until it is warm enough outside to melt. The snow creates a kind of reset button for the yard. There is a period of time when rather than watering or planting things, you get to take out the shovel and clear a path in the snow from the house to the car and around any doors. I am also amazed to find out that this climate has a lot of very hardy plants that actually survive this extended freeze quite well. For example we have a ton of strawberry plants coming back to life that were completely buried under snow for a long time. I know my California strawberries would have all been completely dead.

The raspberry and quince bushes that I planted in the fall are starting to show buds and leaves. There are also daffodils and crocuses in bloom around the yard. We also bought plenty of new bulbs and irises that we planted in the fall, so it is kind of like Christmas when we watch them pop out of the ground and bloom.

My girls are growing up quickly too. Little Mila the Destroyer turned two earlier this month and she is speaking more words in both Polish and English. Mila the Destroyer has a firm understanding of the words 'No' and 'Nie' and likes to upset mommy and daddy with her eating habits. I call Mila a forager because she has a tendency to wander around the kitchen and dig in the cupboards to create a meal that is balanced to her liking. She will ask for a particular food because she likes the packaging or just likes to see the container open and then she is immediately uninterested in the contents. She will also make you peel bananas thinking that she will eat them and then will proceed to have a floor protest when you try to actually give it to her. When you give Mila the Destroyer a bowl of Cheerios in milk she will go and get a straw to suck the milk out and then eat the Cheerios over the next two hours. The good news for little Mila is that being that she is two years old we can now enroll her in a local preschool and will be doing so, soon. Mila the Destroyer will have the pleasure of trashing her sisters old stomping grounds here in Poland :) I think she will be starting out with partial days at the school for a while before she is adjusted to being away from us but she should do well there. This will be a great opportunity for her to have other people explain to her not to break, climb or throw things and learn how to interact with other young kids without beating them up :)