Zoom Zoom

So, maybe about 2 weeks ago I drove Mark's car to the gym, since my car had a tire issue and couldn't go on the interstate at the time. His car was a 99 Accord that we got before we got married in 2004 and had about 141K miles on it. He had been driving it back and forth to Bradenton for work, much to my displeasure. The check engine light was on, it needed new tires and a decent amount of maintenance work in the near future to keep it running. The steering wheel vibrated substantially and it was in desperate need of an alignment. Until I drove it on the interstate, I didn't realize just how much we needed a new car. With 12-year old safety features and no side air bags, I was afraid to have Mark continue driving it down to Bradenton, 25 miles each way. In February, I witnessed a car accident where a driver pulled out right in front of another car that was going about 45mph, and got T-boned. Being a nurse and all, I hobbled my pregnant self over to make sure she was ok. The car looked totaled, but the driver of that car was FINE. Side air bags are awesome!


Anyway, I started looking online to determine what kind of car we should get. I am the car person in this family. I love to drive! After some research, I decided I wanted to look at and test drive a Mazda CX-9. On our way to Target, my mom and I stopped at Carmax to look at one. Carmax is ridiculously overpriced and I doubt I would ever buy a car from them, but they do have a lot of different kinds of cars to look at! So we looked inside of a Ford Edge, which was too small, and I glanced at a Hyundai Veracruz, and then looked at the only CX-9 they had. I drove it around the parking lot. It was awesome. I went home a did more research, and found several great deals on used ones - on the east coast. I decided to apply online for financing...and promptly got rejected. We tried Mark and me and both of us together - declined, declined, declined! That really discouraged me, especially considering Mark's credit score is close to 800! As a last resort, I applied directly with the dealer that had several great deals on used CX-9s. The next morning, I got an email and then a phone call from the internet manager. I explained what I was interested in and she started processing the credit application. It took a few hours for the bank to get back with a decision, but they approved us at a great interest rate and didn't even cap how much we could borrow! We took Mark's car over to Carmax to sell it, and even though I really wasn't happy with what they offered for it, we sold it to them. I actually almost started crying when I watched it be driven away!

The next day, we took Lily on her first road trip to go look at and hopefully buy a new car! The dealership was in Delray Beach, just north of Boca on the east coast. Lily is a champion traveler.

I'll spare you the boring car-buying details. They had already sold one of the cars I was originally interested in, but they had a better, AKA more expensive one. We looked at it, I drove it, and we bought it. It is awesome! And it was a really simple car-buying process, so that was nice.

Car shopping.

Since it took us like 5 hours to get there, we really didn't want to drive all the way home the same day, so I Pricelined us a hotel room in Ft. Lauderdale/Plantation. We went out to dinner at a restaurant at an Irish pub in a shopping center called Mizner Park, stopped at Target and then went to our hotel. This was Lily's first hotel stay!

Yes, I am a horrible mother and put her down on the probably-contaminated hotel comforter. Mark promptly rescued her.

We then proceeded to wash our baby in a mop bucket.

This jacuzzi is a little small.

Rinsing!

The next day, we made a pitstop at Best Buy for an auxilary cable for the car stereo, and then found a beach so I could dip Lil's toes in the Atlantic Ocean!

Unimpressed with the ocean.

My mommy-mobile!

Traveling is fun! Thanks for the new wheels!