Mommin' It Up!

July 22, 2010July 22, 2010

I love what they do for me.

Once upon a time, a dad bought his 17-year-old daughter a car. More specifically, my dad bought me a 1987 Toyota Camry station wagon. At the time it was only 8 years old, but had been kind of abused by it’s previous owner so it was in rough shape. My dad nursed it back to health, and I named it Desmond. Oh, how I loved him!

Desmond at Cornerstone — Desmond. Oh how I miss him!

He wasn’t the coolest looking car in the school parking lot, but he and I were total buddies. He got me through the rest of high school, all of college, and the early years of my marriage. Many, many memories were made in Desmond. Like when I was a freshman at Asbury College and wasn’t really supposed to have a car on campus and did and my friends talked me into sneaking out to town to Fazoli’s so we could all get 99 cent salads and all the breadsticks we could eat and avoid the college cafeteria for once! Or when Bobby and I and my friend Lori drove him to the Cornerstone music festival SO packed full of a camping gear you had to use both feet on the brakes to stop him! Oh, those were the days! When Desmond finally breathed his last in 2003, he had about 304,000 miles on him. Bobby and I were actually pretty emotional about “putting him out to pasture” so to speak.

So we bought this:

Our current Camry wagon, a 1992 (fully-loaded with SUNROOF thankyouverymuch! AND power windows, ahem, Emily) that even has the third pop-up seat in the back. That’s right, it seats SEVEN baby, SEVEN! It’s great for trips and for hauling Bobby’s sailboats in the summer. It’s really Bobby’s car so it doesn’t have a name (only chicks name their cars, right?) but we love this car to pieces. It has been SO dependable and gets us and all the crap we can pack in it everywhere we need to go. And? It’s got 257,650 miles on it! It’s finally to the point where it’s needed some major repairs, but that’s where having a mechanic for a husband comes in handy. We bought it for a very small sum back in 2003 and it has paid for itself many times over!

So, you heard Em’s Toyota story, and now you’ve heard mine – if you didn’t already share yours with us (or if any of my friends have any particular stories you want to share about MY Desmond!) please share today!

I LOVE my Toyotas! To see what other bloggers love, check out Things I Love Thursday at the Diaper Diaries.

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This post was written as part of the “Every Toyota has a Story” campaign. To share your story, visit Toyota’s Facebook page – although there is no way your story is going to be as good as mine. 🙂

July 21, 2010

Baseball Sammy

Sammy is obsessed – obsessed – with baseball. It’s all he wants to do/watch/wear/talk about. The other night I videotaped Sam talking about baseball and all his favorite players, and I thought I’d post the best part.

Here he is singing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” 🙂

July 20, 2010July 19, 2010

Why I’m Not a Mini-Van Mom

I’m not a mini-van mom. I would love to be – really, I would. I think mini-vans are sweet, and I pretty much lust after the Toyota Sienna.

However, there are two reasons I’m not – and am highly unlikely to become – a mini-van mom.

Reason #1:

and… Reason #2:

We bought the Camry in 2002 – just barely used, with 18,000 miles. Now, eight years later, it’s going on 158,000 miles… and still going strong.

We bought the Corolla in 2004 – brand new and fully loaded (and by fully loaded, I mean with windows that you roll up. Like, physically roll up. Remember those?) Anywho, it’s only got 138,000 miles on it.

As you can see, we drive the crap out of our cars. We rack up the miles, let the gas light come on (and then stay on for 30 miles or so) before we bother to fill up, and we have the oil changed sporadically at best (Bobby Rapson, I can see you cringing!).

These cars? Can take it.

We’ve never had the first problem with either one of them, and haven’t had to do anything other than replace the brakes and tires every once in a while (btw, don’t buy tires from WalMart. Don’t say I didn’t warn you). They both get good gas mileage (particularly the Corolla, which is why I drive it 65 miles to and from work every day, even though I prefer the more lush Camry!) and they have plenty of room for our kids and all their stuff.

Also – they’ve been paid off for years.

You know what that means? I am never getting my mini-van.

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This post was written as part of the “Every Toyota has a Story” campaign. To share your story, visit Toyota’s Facebook page (where someone posted of a Corolla that has 557,000 miles on it – ugh, I am soooo never getting that van!)