Cars and skates

Last Saturday, we finally had time to go car shopping. We had been down to one car since the Mustang was stolen the Sunday before Iliana was born. Luckily we've been able to borrow my father-in-law's truck once Nolan went back to work. We dropped the kids off at my in-laws, and went for it. We stopped at one place and didn't find any we liked in our price range, but I did find a nice convertible that I liked. The second place we went to didn't have anything we could agree on. So we went to a place that we drive past all the time. We found a lot of cars in our price range, that we liked. But we saw a black Ford Taurus that drew us in. It only had 63,000 miles on it, and looked nice, and it was within our budget. So we looked around some more since we weren't entirely sure yet. I found a minivan for $20 thousand that had a sunroof, built-in navigation system, and DVD player. That was really not in our budget. Nolan found a truck that he fell in love with, but it was even more expensive than the minivan. So we fantasized a bit, and said that we would just get both cars. Then we came back to reality and looked at the Ford again. So we talked to the guy there, and found out the gas mileage was decent, so we went for a test drive. We would up going over to Beth and Mike's so Mike could check it out for us. He said it was a good car even with how old it was (it's a 1999). So we drove it back, and with some help from Mike talked down the total price from $8 (post taxes and fees) to $5700. We had most of the money in the bank, so we wrote a check, and then discussed how to pay the rest. Nolan's parents had offered to help us back when Iliana was in the hospital, so I told Nolan that we should take them up on the offer, and then we could pay them back instead of taking out a loan. So we called them up and they transferred the money into our account. So we wrote out a second check with a contract saying that they wouldn't cash it until a week later. So we drove away with our new car, got to my in-laws to pick up the kids, and then realized that we left my car at the dealership! oops... So we drove back and grabbed our car with very red faces.

So we picked up the kids, and drove over to my parents house. I was trying to keep from Nolan what the plans for the rest of our night were, but Dad pretty much told him right when we walked in the door. We had been trying to go ice skating for a while. We wanted to go to the outdoor rink which is seasonal, and so we were quickly running out of time. We had tried in December, but it was raining. We tried again last Wednesday, but it closed earlier than I thought, and by the time Nolan got home from work it was too late. We finally got to go Saturday night. We got there, laced up our skates, and got on the ice. I had only been once, and Nolan had never been at all, but he had experience on roller blades. So of course Nolan was good right away and started off. I clung to the wall a lot until I came to other people on the wall who wouldn't move. He really just would lap me over and over again, but Nolan pretty much is good at whatever he tries. Every once in a while he would slow down and do a lap with me. I only fell once, but my calf still hurts from it. I did manage to do one lap without touching the wall or relying on Nolan so I was pretty proud of myself.

I love my husband so much!