Farewell Friend and Special Guests

In early February (of  this very same year!) we bid farewell to Domestique.  She served me well through the second half of college and nobly accepted her duties in Maryland after Pete's Ford Focus went kaput. Wild and crazy kids we were as we embarked on a greyhound bus trip with itty bitty Luke for our 1 year anniversary to retrieve the sparkly Saturn from storage at my parents'.

She survived many a stressors including a young adult mission trip to New Orleans which resulted in a broken windshield, christening by our firstborn's urine during an emergency diaper change, an attack by the vacuum cleaner leaving a bite out of the front passenger seat, and years of service as we resumed residency on Spangler road racking up a total of 143 thousand plus miles.

 Diagnostics in early February suggested we pour some $1300 into the old girl.  Although the hope was to have paid off the van before adding another car payment we decided  that we'd much rather use the $1300 toward a new car payment than into the beloved machine that may or may not make it through another year.  Besides, with Pete's lengthy commute, something more reliable was more than worth it in exchange for my peace of mind with our fourth child on the way.

I won't go into specifics, but it's interesting to note the different approaches that Pete and I took toward car shopping.  Pete is NOT a fan.  After some internet research and bantering, Pete took a personal day, we called in reinforcements and we took one last ride in Domestique on our way to the dealership to test drive a Chevy Cruze.  The Cruze was nice but I felt uncomfortable making such a large purchase without at least comparing it to another car.  We knew we wanted something that would get good gas mileage and didn't need for it to fit the whole family but I wanted to get a look at the next size up Chevy model.  The dealership in North Canton didn't have any Malibus on the lot so we were escorted by our salesperson Glenn in the back seat of one of the Cruzes we test drove to the partner dealership in Stow.  Pete and I both agreed on multiple accounts that we liked the 2013 Malibu better than the Cruze.

Meet Seaborg:

Despite multiple trips to the BMV to get everything switched over, the failed attempt to take advantage of the so-called free car washes at the dealership, and the ridiculous amounts of *FINAL NOTICE* junk mail to renew the warrantee we are quite happy with the acquisition.

Other events of note include a very recent visit from cousin Sarah who graciously gave up an afternoon of her college spring break to color eggs with the boys and humored them with some outside time playing baseball and riding scooters in the backyard as well.

 We've also welcomed Luke's preschool class pet into our home for the duration of the spring break.  Bob H.E. Williams has settled in a place of honor on our mantle.

 I'm okay with fish but not particularly open to other pet possibilities.  I'm not sure Pete's all that accepting of even fish having commented yesterday at dinner when Luke excitedly explained that we would have to feed the beta each day, "Hey Luke, maybe you could play with Bob using that new fishing pole Uncle Stevie got you for your birthday!"