What a week!

WOW, what a week! There has been so much stuff going on this week, it's just been crazy! I've got to warn you, this is going to be a long winded post, so read it when you get time! Where do I begin? Let's see...

The 2006 NFL Draft is on Saturday! I know that isn't headline news for most of you but for us Fantasy Football fanatics, this is a good time of the year. I have to work Saturday morning but hey, that is what our DVR is for! Haha! GO DALLAS COWBOYS! I just wanted to throw that one out there to get it off of my chest before I get to the good stuff.

On to the good news. As of yesterday, Kimi officially never has to go to class again! Lucky lady. She has completed her coursework and is just waiting to walk across the stage next Friday to get her MASTER'S DEGREE in Speech Language Pathology. She's been working on this for so long. She's put into this degree all of her heart and it's finally coming to fruition. She still has one big hurdle to jump left before everything is finalized but she can definitely see the finish line.

Tomorrow morning Kimi is taking her big certification exam! She needs to pass this test b/c there are some pretty big implications if she doesn't. But seriously, that's not going to happen. She's had her head buried in her school books for the past few weeks going through old notes and refreshing things she already knows. We need your prayers for her tomorrow morning at around 10:45am. She knows what she needs to know to pass the test but it's nerves that needs to be conquered. Thank you all for your prayers. Oh and speaking of Kimi graduating college, we got her a graduation gift! Here is how the events unfolded...

On Wednesday, we sold Kimi's car! This was a major blessing for us. We had a 2001 Honda Civic coupe with 94000 miles and a nice size dent in the bumper (you should ask Kimi about how that got there sometime. Let's just say this, it has to do with a sale at Kohls. Haha!). We were needing to sell this car b/c fitting a baby in the back seat of a 2 door civic would be extremely hard. Well, I just happened to mention we might be looking to sell our car to a guy at work and he said he was interested. He went out for a test drive and loved the car but the dent was just too much for him so he went another route instead. We were a little bummed by that but we decided that we'd hold off for a little while and try again later on this summer.

Well, out of the blue (more like straight out of God's will!), we get a voicemail message from this girl who is interested in seeing the car. She was good friends with the guy who test drove it and he referred her to us. I called her back and set a time to meet up with her to go for a test drive on Wednesday. Needless to say, Kimi and I did some mad cleaning on the car. We got the oil changed, filled up the gas tank, bought scratch remover and SCRUBBED the car down like crazy. By the time we were through, the car was glistening. It looked good. ;)

I met up with the girl and she had a friend who was there to help her out to make sure she was getting a good deal. I went through a whole gambit of questions and told them everything I knew. After they finished with their inquisition, I asked her if she wanted to go for a test drive. She said, "Nope, I trust my friend completely and if he says the car is good, then I believe him. We're good to go. I'll meet you this afternoon to finish the paperwork." I was dumbfounded. They were actually going to buy our 94000-mile-dent-in-the-bumper car without even test driving it. WOW. I met up with her that afternoon and that was that! We had sold our car without even so much as advertising it! Completely amazing. Which leads me to your next obvious thought... "Well, what did you buy?"

Well, you'll have to wait on that for a few paragraphs. Haha! Kimi and I had been comparing different cars for several weeks before we sold her civic and we had narrowed it down to 3 cars... the new Honda Civic, a used Honda Accord or a used Honda Pilot. While we were doing our research still on those cars, we stumbled across a really nice Lexus ES 300 at a dealership in Edmond that had a good price. We checked out the specs on the net and it compared almost equally to the Honda Accords we were looking at with the prices, mileage, and years between the two being almost the same as well. When all was said and done, we threw out the Honda Accord in favor of the Lexus ES 300. And after looking at the Honda Pilot, we were very unimpressed with the gas mileage on it and besides, we already had an SUV in the garage so we threw that one out too.

We stopped by the dealership in Edmond tuesday night and went for a test drive of the Lexus. It was easily the best car experience of my life. The way it looked and drove was just incredible, like a dream. We would have bought it then and there but we hadn't given the Honda Civic a test drive yet and we wanted to make sure we covered all options. I know, I know, how does a Honda Civic compare to a Lexus.. but anyway, we told the dealership we were still shopping around and if we were interested, we'd give them a call later.

We made our way down to the dealership in Norman to test drive a 2006 Honda Civic EX. The interior center console design and engine noise is what blew it for the civic. The center console was raised up and the parking brake was where my knee usually is at. NOT comfortable at all. Plus when you sped up the engine, it made this uncharacteristic whine that was loud and annoying. Both of us have driven Honda Civic's in the past and none of them sounded like this. Not sure what it was, but we definitely weren't buying this car now. Back to Edmond to start negotiations...

We met up with our salesman (his name is Ralph. He had a radio announcers voice which cracked me up everytime I heard it) and started up the paperwork. To finally end this story, we bought a 2003 Lexus ES 300 and got an amazing deal. Plus, we put down the money we made from the sale of Kimi's car. Everything just seemed to fall into place with this car. It's seriously the nicest car I've ever been in, much less owned. Check out the pics below and you'll see what I mean. ;)

"Kimi's Graduation Present: Front view."



"Kimi's Graduation Present: Another front view."


"Kimi's Graduation Present: Back view."


"Kimi's Graduation Present: Interior view."


"Kimi's Graduation Present: Another interior view."


"Kimi's Graduation Present: Dash controls view."


"Kimi's Graduation Present: Chrome Wheels. Nice touch."

Oh man, we were so fortunate to find this car at the price we did. Didn't I tell you all it was a crazy week? God is allowing a lot of good things to happen for us this year so far. We are just trying to hang on for the ride... no pun intended. Haha

Thank you God so much for your amazing blessings. They have been way more than what we would have ever dreamed. Please keep your Hand on our family, especially as we are entering the final few months until our baby is born. Thank you so much for your love...

God bless you guys.
Jason