new car!

recently our faithful 1999 Ford Explorer, (given graciously by the Greene's to the Dukes who gave it to jesse for his graduation from tech) "Gandalf the Grey," has been in rapid decline. he has served us faithfully; we left from our wedding in it and brought judah home in it, among a long list of other adventures. but like a beloved old pet or senile grandparent, it has turned against us in its dotage; betraying us TWICE on our vacation.

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because of this, and having newer, more important life in our cars' hands than just our own, we had been looking for newER cars since the beach. newer, but used, of course, since we could never afford an actual NEW car...and we wouldnt think it worth it if the prices were comparable anyway. well, as we started looking these past 2 weeks, we heard about the cash for clunkers rebate program the gov't is doing to get environmentally unfriendly cars off the road and replaced with more fuel efficient ones. the newer car we really liked, a Saturn Vue, was an upgrade in MPG of 7 or 8 which means we would get the full $4500 discount towards a NEW car for trading in our "clunker" (which is such an offensive name to call what was previously our family's perfect happy metal cocoon). yikes, new cars are still usually more than $4500 more expensive than their slightly used counterparts, so we sitll didnt even think we would use that discount. then we found out saturn was offering an additional $3000 customer cash, making the 2009 Vue even less expensive than its 2006 counterparts with 40k miles on them that were on sale at Carmax. NICE!

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so we left judah with mom-o and big daddy and spent the day narrowing down the selection at our local dealers. unfortunately, during the buying process the dealer made the mistake of telling us in detail what they do with the "clunkers" in the "cash for clunkers" rebate program: they strip the car for parts, then inject saline through the engine to fatally kill it (as if theres another kind of killing), and then smash it at a junkyard. awesome. savage robbery followed by lethal injection euthanasia topped off by a post mortem demolishing of the remains of our treasured first family car. as excited as i was for our new car, i actually shed tears for our poor Gandalf, who would sacrifice his life for a newer, safer, more economical car for our entire family. however the dealer assured us that, despite his later betrayals, our car had been a good and faithful servant so he would be going to car heaven after they put him down.

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"i say a little prayer for you!" goodbye, my faithful friend

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one last hug

i salute your years of service, mon ami

presenting the wunderkind!
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yes, we are aware that the colors are straight up UGA, but we will be installing a prominent GT sticker ASAP so that people dont mistake us for lesser alumni. (or maybe we wont, and they will assume we are UGA grads/fans and of lesser intelligence; therefore giving us lots of room on the road...zing!)

the bumbo and the dumbo

hahaha not really dumbo (in fact, he's the biggest smarty i know), but i was already planning on posting the pics of judah sitting up like a big boy in his bumbo chair as well as some hilarious pics of jesse's hair and so the title kind of wrote itself

so judah started holding his head up while sitting a little bit lately, not perfectly, but pretty steady, so i decided it was time to get out the bumbo to exercise those muscles even more. little did i know that seeing my baby in a chair--albeit a teal foam one with an elephant on it--would be so emotional...i mean, only big boys sit in chairs!

"hmmm, this orientation is new"

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"ok, i can do this"

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"hey, where'd you go?" (notice him completely ignoring the flashy, expensive toy right in front of him)

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hahaha on the bathroom floor in his tank top. so perfect

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smiley boy learning to love sitting in the bathroom...just like daddy!

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jesse wore a hat all day on sunday on the way home from the beach and this was what we got when he took it off. despite his funny faces, i still think he looks totally handsome, even with the new side part. doesnt it make you sick...even trying to take silly goofy pictures he still looks great (if a little goober-ish). we should all be so naturally beautiful!

so that's where judah gets that face


cant hold back the hilarity

sneaky pete

so myspace profile pic circa 2001

touchdown!

here is the live action version of judah's first ever footsteps on planet earth. lucky boy had his first footprints of life made on the sandy surf of cape san blas, fl. its really cool to think that these are the first two of thousands and thousands of happy footprints he will one day leave on this same beach in years to come building sandcastles with mommy, boogie boarding with daddy and playing volleyball with all of his harper "broncles." we cant wait for next year!