Okay enough about doctors!

On to my pride and joy - my children!  Dani is doing well in college (or so she tells me) and really must love majoring in dance as she is in production numbers that require her between classes and practices to be on campus 7 days a week!  I am really proud that she loves what she is majoring in. She even wants to get a Masters so she can teach at the college level as opposed to having a dance studio in the future.  Either way, I am proud of her and can hardly believe she is almost half way through her junior year in college already! 

She is coming down to go with us to the Miss Texas Teen pageant after Thanksgiving.  Stac is in it and she is getting really excited about it!  I would be too!  We have to go pick up her evening gown today which hopefully is done its last alteration (needed 2), and a few other required outfits for the pageant but then should be pretty much ready. It is in Houston and I've got the hotel booked and our tickets for the events.  Hope she does well!  She really looks gorgeous in her evening gown.  Unfortunately the rules are no parents helping with makeup/hair, so I hope she can get everything right.  She has been taking some pageant workshops which have been a huge help, so it will be up to her.

Hub is staying home with the six-pack.  Hopefully he'll fare all right.  It is a lot to handle, but I think he can do it. Sure wish it was going to be televised so he could at least see it, but it not going to be.  So it will be us gals at the pageant and that will be fun!  I haven't been anywhere with just the gals since we came out 4 years ago to look at colleges. Hub got to go back east last year for a week or so, so I don't feel guilty about a weekend away.  ;-)

Oh, I almost forgot!!!  I went ahead and sold my old Honda Civic !!! It was having problems starting off and on, and I did finally get that resolved but just felt like something else was going to go wrong with it soon enough...and hub has been urging me to get a new car since I so 'deserve' it.  :)    I posted it on Craigslist and sold it in about a week and a half. Got $2950 for it which was great considering it had $187K miles and some small rust areas above each side above the rear wheels (from living in PA for sure). 

Right before selling the car hub and I went down into Austin to look at a Yaris as they were cute and the price of at least one I saw online was just over $13K.  The one I test drove was a pretty electric blue color but I didn't really like that the speedometer, etc was in the center above the radio area - apparently so that it could work for both the European and US market.  Anyway, we didn't take my car down that evening but were planning to early the next morning if we got a decent deal.  The guy we dealt with was nice enough but he didn't come down one PENNY on the Yaris...said it was the base model and no room for haggling, etc...That was a turn off to me.  But then we looked at the financing paper he shoved in front of me and it had 9.something % ~!  Well I had already looked on line and saw the going rates were around 6.5% for a 3 year loan which is the maximum term I wanted. I voiced my disgust with the rate and he said that was only an average, so I let him run my credit and he said it was excellent and that the rate was 7.5%.  Well I still didn't like the sound of that...but moving on....we mentioned my honda to 'trade-in'.  He said they wouldn't give me anything more than $500 for it because they'd just auction it off (it was too old with high mileage).  I whippped out the Kelly blue book print-out which listed the trade-in value of $1650 based on the condition.  He said it didn't matter and I pretty much got up and said "We'll I'll have to think about it. THis whole deal STINKS"!   I think hub was a little surprised I was so abrupt but the whole deal did suck!!  No negotating the price, no decent trade in allowance, and my neck would have to get used to turning to the right every time I drove!  

The next morning he called to tell me they COULD do better on my car and probably in the $1000-$2000 range but I had no desire to go back down to South Austin.  He blew it!  But honestly I should be thanking him because it made me determined to sell my car myself for as much as I could get for it and change my focus to the Corollas which had a $1000 cash back offer, got a definitive car loan from capital one at 5.5% and went elsewhere for my Corolla!

We went back up north to where my hub got his truck and my folks offered (without my even asking) to lend me the money for the remainder of the car expense at 0% interest which I accepted.  The dealership negotiated the price of the Corolla for me so my cost was $13888 before tax/tags....when compared to the $13,121 for the Yaris which is a lot smaller and not as nice, and so it was a win -win situation and I have my new car~!  I feel so much better not having an 'official' car loan too so that won't show up on my credit when I go to refi next year.  

Okay well sorry these posts were long...but wanted to catch everyone up ~ :)

Happy Saturday...