A New Addition to the Driveway

Okay, my summer has been over for a month now but I still can't believe that school is about to start back up. Jenna and her fellow students in Robertson County report to school for a half day (registration) on Thursday and classes begin on Monday. I just can't believe August is here.

ABOUT THE NEW ADDITION. First of all, I sure didn't expect that we would have traded by now. I was thinking we would shop for several weeks. However, we went to Rivergate on Friday evening and spotted a gold 2002 Toyota Sienna and took it for a test drive. We liked it and the dealer allowed us to take it home for the night. When we got up Saturday morning we still weren't 100% sure about it so we drove it back in and shopped around a bit more that morning. In the end we felt like this vehicle was meant for us so we bought it. It has 20,200 miles and a bumper to bumper warranty until 2009 or 100,000 miles. We are very pleased with the way the deal worked out. (Actually, I am very proud of Vicki. I could not have pulled that deal off.) It is so nice to have sliding doors on BOTH sides of the van.

FINANCIAL RESPONSIBILITY. We left the kids with Pauline when we went van shopping. During the day Mom and Aunt Mar took Jenna and Ben to their house to give Pauline some relief. We stopped by there on our way home with the new van. While we were outside talking about it the kids were eager to get in and claim their seats. During a lull in the adult conversation I heard Jenna from the back seat ask, "Daddy, did we have enough money to do this?" (Earlier she had asked me how much the van cost. Putting it in terms she could understand I told her how many bicycles like hers we could buy with the same money. Her eyes got real big.)

A TRIBUTE TO A GOOD VAN. I can't let the old van go without a bit of a eulogy. When you have a vehicle for six years and two months you get a bit attached. It was a green 1994 Pontiac Transport and had 78,000 miles when we bought it in 1998. We were the third owners. It served us very well locally and on trips to Camden, Gatlinburg, Florida, South Carolina, Virginia, New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. It had 167,000 miles on it when we let it go.

BIRTHDAYS GALORE. A week ago Saturday was Riley Dee's birthday (which I should have reported last week). She is four. We celebrated her birthday with a water party in their back yard. Since they live on a hill they had the best place for a water slide. The play house Derek has built out back was lots of fun too. If we keep partying like this the kids will have so much sugar there will be no calming them down. But that's the way childhood should be sometimes.

Ben is also four years old today. Hard to believe. We celebrated his birthday at Hollywood's Grill and Fun Center in White House. In short the grandmothers (including Aunt Mar), the Dee family, and most of the Kenny Swann family was there. We all enjoyed a good meal, cake, presents, and time in the game room. We all had a good time together.

Ben got several cool gifts. Among them were a book of the complete collection of Thomas the Tank Engine stories, Legos, a Playmobile Castle set, a video game, boxing gloves, and walkie talkies. Ben also got a plastic sword which Nate discovered. Before bedtime we found him walking through the house waving the sword, baring his teeth, and growling.

Joe