whirlwind weekend

Well, after much drama, gnashing of teeth, and hurry-up-and-wait last week, C and I took off on Friday morning for Maryland. "Maryland?" you say, "What's in Maryland?" Other than crappy cell service (what's up with that, Maryland?), there happens to be a big and wonderful Carmax dealership in Maryland.

That's right, friends. C and I are officially minivan owners. And woo wee is she pretty!

Black Pearl, in all her glory

It was a long trip-- about 9.5 hours each way. On Friday morning, I was so amped up that I woke up at 3:30am. I think C was a bit less than pleased about that, but oh well. :) We were on the road by 4:15.

Sunrise in Ohio. We were already east of Columbus at this point.

We spent a majority of the trip there discussing what we were going to name the new car. My vote was Nellie, but C was not on board with the girls-names-as-car-names theme. We finally settled on Black Pearl (you know, after the pirate ship. because nothing's more badass than a minivan.). The odds of me calling her Minnie Pearl are pretty high. :)

What kind of interstate goes right through a town? And has stoplights? Get it together, I-70!

We arrived in White Marsh, MD at about 2:00. All in all it took us a couple hours to do the test drive, trade in my old car (GOOD RIDDANCE!) and do all the paperwork to purchase the new car. I cannot say enough good things about Carmax. They have it right with their slogan, "The way car buying should be." No pressure, no haggle, no hassle. Did we get as much money as we could have if we'd sold my CR-V ourselves? No. But it was worth it to us to not have to mess with it. And Carmax's "no haggle" price was $6,000 less than similar cars were selling for in Indianapolis. Basically, we got a brand new 2014 minivan for less than the price of a used one. Driving to Maryland was a no-brainer.

We had thought that we'd be able to make it back to Wheeling, WV by the end of the night, but that wasn't happening. After getting up so early and driving such a far way, we were DONE. We had dinner at Red Lobster and stayed the night at a Hampton Inn (by far my favorite hotel brand) in Hagerstown, MD. We were up around 6:30 the next morning and, after a Panera breakfast, were back on the road.



Almost heaven...

We got home about 2:30, and our puppy was so glad to see us :) His Aunt Haley took good care of him though. He was worn out, which was wonderful because so were we!!

We've already broken it in-- I got groceries on Sunday morning, and yesterday we went up to Lafayette to visit my grandpa. 5 of us (including my mom and sister) all piled in the van and went to lunch. It was nice to have a vehicle large enough to fit everyone in and nice enough for everyone to want to ride in it! The auto-sliding doors were also a big help with my grandpa, who's almost 93. It will also be great whenever we have to take Grove somewhere. Driving to my parents' house for Christmas in the CR-V was horrible! We needed more space!!

So yeah, that was the excitement of my past week or so. How are you all doing? Ready to ring in the new year??