Saturday and Sunday
This weekend was very.. busy. Early in the week we learned that OSU Federal as hosting a car sale-thing at the Fairgrounds, which we decided to visit on Friday. By the time we arrived, all of the dealers were packing up and leaving. The beauty was that the OSU Federal tent was still up, and we were able to get pre-approved for $10,000 - not bad considering just six months ago they wouldn't approve a penny over $5,000. It pays to make all payments on time, especially those to OSU Federal? I guess so! So with our pre-approval slip in hand (written to only $9,000) we went walking through the maze of cars. Since dealers were packing up for the night, we were able to look without being interrupted by pesky salespeople. There were a few nice-ish looking cars around our budget range but nothing to be excited about. Except for in the Wilson Motors section of the lot. Three cars caught our eyes there. So we went home and did some research, did some figuring about cost/benefit analysis, and went to bed.
Saturday morning we got up early and got back to the car sale by 9:30. It didn't take long for us to get helped. Long story short... we wound up buying a 2003 Nissan Sentra GXE for $8,400. I'm pretty happy with the price, it's some $1,500 under KBB and actually it's only $500 over the KBB for a private party sale. I'm excited to be getting 30+mpg as compared to barely 20 mpg with the van. That change should save us at least $100 a month in gas costs. More important... I don't have to wake up at midnight on Sundays anymore! Or at 3 or 4 or 5 every other day of the week. Now when I get up, it's so I can get up. That is tremendously exciting. Plus, the car is just fun to drive. Although I dread going back to work on Wednesday, I look forward to the drive! :)
Yesterday was almost as fun as Saturday. We had our weekly lunch with Johnny (Amanda's fake name for our waiter at the El Sol restaurant) and we went shopping at CV... printed off some pictures from our cameras. Of course, once we get photos from Ava and everyone else we will probably be replacing some of the shots but it was fun.
And on the way home we decided it was time to look at cell phones. We've been dealing with T-Mobile's poor coverage for 3 years (and Amanda had been dealing with it long before we met) and I haven't had my own cell phone in years. So on a whim we stopped in the Verizon store right next to our apartments. Of all the people to be there that day, it was Kevin. Krosten Vharles' Kevin! Yes, the Kevin that Stu and I met during our Roseburg trip in 2004, and who played poker with us at the 9/11 shindig. Talk about fun! Well, we were approved for a contract without deposit and that got the ball rolling. After several minutes discussing plans and phones and other such things, we wound up buying, and we both have brand new cell phones with great signals.
So, busy weekend. New car plus new cell phones - I'm spent! Today is the day for Albany - social security office and DMV to get the state and feds to recognize us as married. Then its on to FM to change Amanda Gilbert to Amanda Helling, and from there the sky is the limit. Banks, credit cards, all sorts of name change fun!