My People Mover

I've mentioned before that my husband has had an obsession with trading cars in and buying new cars for the past few years and apparently his obsession didn't end when we moved to Texas. I am sure I remember hearing him say that he would drive his Ford Taurus the whole time we're at our current duty station.

However, last week, he got the car buying fever again! Wednesday or Thursday we drove to a local car lot to see a car he called the dealer about. After negotiations got nowhere on that one, he broadened his search area and ended up in Austin Friday buying a car that is supposed to be for me. His rationalization about this one is that now we'll have 2 cars that are big enough for all 5 of us to ride comfortably.

So here's the car progression he's had since 2006

Isuzu Rodeo

purchased from his brother some time in 2005, I think

GMC Yukon

purchased in November 2007 for a GREAT deal.

If we still had this one, it would almost be paid for!

Chevy Malibu

puchased in the spring of 2008, the first time we thought we'd be stationed at Bragg or Hood

Chevy Silverado

purchased in summer of 2008- better known as the $20,000 swingset

Ford Taurus

purchased in May of 2010 because we knew we were coming to Hood

Now he's supposed to drive my Kia Sedona that will be completely paid off next month and I'm supposed to drive this....

Chevy Suburban

I'll never be able to just pull this thing into just any old parking spot. In his kindness, the hubs said that I'll get plenty of exercise parking in the parking spots furthest from the doors of all my favorite shopping destinations. I should probably just print out cards now that say something like "I'm not capable of driving this tank so I apologize for dinging your car with my door or bumper." Of course, I'd give my contact information and maybe the name of the body shop that I contract with to repair the damage I cause to innocent cars parked in my way!

I'm just hoping the car buying fever doesn't strike again any time soon! I've threatened to make him sign a "No Car Buying" contract. The next car I get will be exactly what I want. It's too bad I have no idea what that is!

Pooped

I'm officially POOPED! VBS is behind us and it was a fabulous week. I learned a ton about myself, the volunteers and VBS in general! We had about 6 kids who made professions of Faith so that makes it all worthwhile. Now I have to shift my thinking to Preteen Camp on top of lots of other things.

Jake spent most of the morning today buying a truck. Then we spent the rest of the day using the truck for the reason why Jake felt the need to bite the bullet and get one even though we've only made 2 payments on the Malibu. This whole 3 cars in 8 months isn't the wisest financial decision we've ever made, but he should've just bought a truck in November and we'd be finished with this craziness already. Oh well. He says this one is 'til death do us part' so we'll see.

A family in our church is moving to Arlington to take a position at Dallas Baptist University and was trying to sell their outdoor playset. I bought it sight unseen for $300. I trusted that this family would have quality stuff and then another friend told me it was nice. After 2 hours of disassembling, we loaded the first load into the back of the new to us truck. After dinner, we went back and got load number 2. Tomorrow afternoon, we'll be picking up loads number 3 and 4. It's a lot bigger than I imagined it was going to be and taken apart, covers most of the grass in our back yard. There were moments in the midst of disassembly that I thought we may have made a huge mistake. Needless to say, we've got to get our $300 worth out of it over the next couple of years because it WON'T be moved by us again!

Did I mention that my sister flew in this morning to stay with the boys this week while I'm at camp? I hope she doesn't already regret this decision. She says she's just glad to get out Central TX for a while so I hope she doesn't hate us at the end of this week. Jake will be home in the evenings and at lunch and she'll be able to take them to the church on Thursday for Mother's Day Out or in her case, Aunt's Day Out! I probably should get her a Starbucks card and directions to the nearest Starbucks card for her few hours of childlessness!

Much to my surprise, the boys were well behaved tonight as we sat down and ate at Taco Cabana. The well behaved part mostly happened AFTER we got our food and believe it or not, the last person eating was BAILEY! He actually sat in a high chair and ate quesadilla, chips and queso and tortillas like he hadn't eaten in a week. Wonders never cease.

Where Da's Car?

What began as a wild goose chase to the lower parts (and sketchier parts) of El Paso ended with a totally whacko outcome!

Friday we were supposed to go pick up our treadmill at Sears, but as is usually the case with us, it hasn't been delivered yet and may be ready on Wednesday. We'll see about that! While sitting there waiting to be told the treadmill isn't at the store, we saw one of those little car selling newspapers and someone was advertising an F150 Super Crew, Jake's dream truck, for an outrageously cheap price. Since we had time to kill, we decided to go find this place. I knew where the street was so Jake followed me - we were in 2 cars because the treadmill and the kids won't all fit in one car. We ended up getting caught in a little bit of border crossing traffic - that's an indication to where we were looking for this F150 Super Crew crazy good deal.

We ended up not finding the place advertising the truck and since most of the other car lots on that street were shady to say the least, we just headed back home. By the time we got home, Jake had decided that he was going to trade in his Yukon for something more fuel efficient. Where we live now it's not a huge issue, but we're not sure where the Lord is going to take us after our commitment to our unit at Fort Bliss is over. I think the prospect of $4 plus for gas in the next 8 weeks has him a little anxious about how much it will cost to fill up the Yukon.

After some discussion, debate and internet searching, we decided Jake would go yesterday morning to see what was out there. You have to remember that we've made a grand total of 3 payments on the Yukon!! After he was gone for a little while, he called me and asked me what I would think of a Chevy Malibu. It's his car, but I obviously have to drive it on occasion. At one point, he was talking about getting one of these little very fuel efficient go cart things and I just couldn't get past the thought of Bailey and Maverick sitting in their car seats in the back seats with their knees in their chests! The Malibu has much better leg room!

A little while later, he's banging on the back door to get in. Bailey is screaming and laughing and obviously not capable of letting him in! I knew he wasn't in the Yukon because he didn't have his garage door opener. He brought the Malibu home for me to test drive.

(If you look closely, you can see our UNC flag blowing in the breeze!! San Antonio, anyone?)

So yes, we're the proud owners of a fuel efficient Chevy Malibu! I have to sheepishly admit that I'm sad that we don't have the Yukon. I loved it! I really did. It's just a car, right? Right! After we became the owners of the Malibu, we got to talking about how many different cars we've owned between the two of us in our almost 5 years of marriage - 7! We've had 7 different cars!! We started out with my Saturn SC3 and his Oldsmobile Cutlass. We moved on from there to the Ford Focus and the Isuzu Rodeo. Then came the Kia Sedona and the GMC Yukon and yesterday we moved onto the Chevy Malibu. Maybe a few cars down the road, I'll be blogging about my BMW Z4 Roadster!

Bailey's a little confused. Every time he goes to the garage, he says "Where's da's car?"