Our New Digs

A quick disclaimer:
I know I didn't post many photos from our wonderful Great Wolf/New York City trip, but I did want to mention that we had quite a time. As you could tell from my last post, it was more work than fun, but we did get to do some fun things, like taking the Staten Island Ferry to get some great photos of the Statue of Liberty and exploring about 1% of Central Park. We enjoyed spending lots of time on the Subway, we ate several delicious bagels, had some good pizza, and spent a VERY rainy (like, umbrella-breaking wind-storm-type of rainy) day in FAO Schwartz. Best of all, we got to spend time with Brad's brother Jeff and my old pal Amy Osborne.

So. Don't think our trip was uneventful or un-fun, just because I didn't write much about it.

And on to the rest of our early-summer adventure...

My next post will be about our trip to western Ohio for Brad's youngest brother's high school graduation.

First, though, I should mention the exciting 24-hour period that immediately preceded our 9-hour road trip to lovely Lima OH. Our plan was to leave after work on Friday and drive halfway that evening... we had reservations at a hotel in Pittsburgh.

I decided at noon on Thursday that I should look into buying a minivan. During nap time, I called around to the Honda dealerships to see if anyone had the model we (after a year of deliberating, looking, test-driving, researching, etc) had decided on. Lo and behold, three of them did and all three came in with different offers. Which left me in the position of negotiating. FUN! One of the sales people (persons?) was smart to offer to drive the van over to MY HOUSE that day so I could check it out.

Long story short:
He ended up being the best sales person EVER and, after about 15 calls back and forth and some very impressive wheeling and dealing on my part (of course, he's probably bragging right now about how HE swindled ME into a horrible deal), I drove our new Odyssey home at 6 pm on Friday evening. Short story a little longer: I hadn't exactly planned to buy a minivan then, so I had to consult with Brad at 10:30 pm on Thursday night, after he had worked about a 15-hour day. Maybe he was too tired to argue? :-)

SO... we bought a minivan. We're officially a Minivan Family. You might be embarrassed for me, but--deep down--I bet you're either (a) jealous because you want one or (b) gloating because you already have one and you want the rest of the world to join your Little Club.

Without further ado:(Not an Actual Photo, but a very good likeness!)

And for those of you who are still reading:
I wouldn't want to leave a story unfinished... since I spent the day-and-a-half before our trip car shopping instead of doing laundry and packing, we ended up leaving town at 10pm on Friday evening. We arrived at our hotel at 2:30 am, the kids didn't fall back asleep until 3:30 am. We woke up the next morning and drove the rest of the way to Lima and arrived with plenty of time to spare before the graduation on Saturday evening. We remained exhausted throughout the weekend and never had a chance to catch up on sleep until, well, now.

But it was SO worth it!