A lot of big events have happened in the past week:
1. I ran my first 5K since 2007.
2. Mom was admitted to the hospital again.
2. Travis and I bought our first car.
3. I turned 25!
Last Saturday was the Liz Hurley Ribbon Run in Huntsville. 5,500 people registered for the race, and there were over 4,000 in the women’s race that I was in! I ran for probably a month to get ready for the race, and my goal was to finish in 27 minutes. I was a little bit slower than that (27:29 officially), but that’s ok. If I’d known that the course was downhill for the last stretch, I would have gone faster I think. Hopefully I can run faster next year. The race raised over $250,000 for breast cancer research!!! Very exciting!
Before the race
I ran “for” my mom, grandmother, and great-grandmother
Me and Travis
Lots of pink!
Almost finished!!
Afterward!
My supporters–thanks for coming!! :)
Mom started running another fever Sunday night and felt bad all day Monday so she ended up back in the hospital Tuesday morning after seeing Dr. Bondly. She had to stay until mid-day Thursday. They ended up giving her a blood transfusion, antibiotics, and potassium while she was there. Jenn surprised Mom by coming home Tuesday afternoon and showing up at the hospital so at least one of us was there for her! She also had several visitors come by to see her while she was there, and she was in the same ginormous room as last time. She’s definitely glad to be home though!
I mentioned in my last post that we were officially car shopping since Travis’s car bit the dust last Monday. I’m proud to say that we bought a car on Wednesday! If you know us very well, that’s a pretty big accomplishment because we don’t usually move too fast when it comes to big decisions. I guess the idea of only having 1 car for too much longer was enough to speed up the process!
After test driving a Fusion, Camry, Altima, and Accord over the weekend, Travis decided that the Altima was his favorite. It has a special type of transmission called CVT that means that it doesn’t shift gears like a normal car does. It really is a smooth ride! He also liked it the best from a looks perspective too. We narrowed down the candidates to 7 Altimas that had the features we were looking for and were also Nissan certified and under 40,000 miles. Two of them were in Decatur (one was the one we’d driven Saturday) and five were in the Atlanta area. Monday morning Travis began to call each dealership and start the haggling. By Monday night we had two serious contenders who had already dropped their prices fairly close to what we were willing to pay. Lynn Layton in Decatur wouldn’t budge much, and the other places in Atlanta either never returned Travis’s phone calls or wouldn’t drop their prices enough. By Tuesday night, we had a plan. We were heading to Marietta and Roswell, GA first thing Wednesday morning to check out the two contenders. The cars were very similar (same year, model, features, and only 3,000 miles difference) which worked in our favor.
So, we left the house at 5:30 AM Wednesday to head to Roswell first. We got to Regal Nissan around 10:30 AM (EST) and checked out the first car. It was just as nice in person as in the photos online. We drove it around town and on the interstate, and it was a really good ride. Once we started talking prices though, that’s when things started to get interesting. This dealership had had this car for about 2 months, whereas the other place only had their Altima about 10 days. We haggled with them for a little while, and they ended up dropping their price even lower than we were hoping they would. We told them we would have to call the other dealership and see if they could do better than that; if so, we would head there to check out the other car. When we called them though, they actually said they would pass on the deal. I guess they didn’t want to drop their price that much since they hadn’t had their car very long. Overall, Regal dropped their price almost $4000, which I felt like was pretty good. I’m sure they still made a profit on it because it was a leased vehicle, and they leased it out originally. We were so excited to get a good price though!
After signing a bunch of paperwork, we headed to a different office where somebody pestered us for at least 20 minutes about buying an extended warranty on the car. Since it was a certified used car, it already had an extended warranty, so spending an extra $1000 to cover us for only 5 more years would have been crazy. The car is only 2 years old, so we’re banking on something breaking after 5 years from now, not before. It’s just funny that when they are selling you the car, they tell you how nice it is and everything, and after you’ve agreed to buy it, then they tell you how things will break and you better buy the warranty just in case..haha. They also tried a last-ditch effort to convince us to finance it, but we didn’t get baited on that either. Whew.
Then we had to wait on them to make us a second key and replace the battery, so by the time we left there, it was 4:30 PM EST! We ended up driving straight home and straight to church. When we finally got home, we were exhausted but thrilled! Car buying wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be. You just have to do a lot of research, know what you’re doing, and not get talked into anything by a smooth talking salesman.
09 Altima
Pretty!
Yipee!
He’s pretty excited!
Today, we went to the Pink Luncheon put on by one of Mom’s good friends who had breast cancer several years ago. This year’s them was “Boil Out Breast Cancer” and we had Frogmore Stew for lunch. It was yummy! Everything was decorated in pink, and there were lots of good “pink” desserts. They raised over $9000 for breast cancer research, which is awesome!
Mom and her girls!
Travis wore my Liz Hurley race t-shirt since he refuses to wear pink…haha
Sisters :)
Claire came for a little while too!
Last night Travis and I went out to eat at Red Robin for my birthday, and I opened a few presents when we got home. Thank you Cheryl, Alisha, Tyler, Emily, and Melissa for the soup bowls that go with my fine china! I’m excited to have more stuff to fill up my china cabinet. Travis also got me the teapot and vegetable bowl for my collection. Yay! I also got some lotion, body splash, and a new pair of earrings. It was a pretty good day! Tonight we are celebrating my birthday with Mom, Dad, and Jenn (Felix and Gabby came with us for the weekend too). I’m looking forward to some yummy chicken casserole for supper. Tomorrow, Travis and I are going to the Bama game against Tennessee. Hope we get another W!
