no free car after all

My loan was finally processed and I made my first payment. No free car after all. At least it is one less thing for me to worry about. Right now, I am trying to work out what classes I am going to take for the next three semesters, which is how long I have until I graduate with my master's. The trick is making sure that I am taking the right classes each semester because most of the classes are only taught in one semester, so if you miss one you have to wait a whole year until the class is available again. I think I have worked it all out perfectly, but we'll see, the only problem would be if the college decides to make changes.

free car

So, I am supposed to make my first car payment today, however I have been waiting for a whole month for the credit union that financed my car to send me the info about my loan. I have received nothing so far. On Friday, I called the credit union and they have no record of me at all. What does this mean? Do I have a free car? Of course, being an accountant, I thought about all of the possible ramifications if I don't make my loan payment, it could hurt my credit, they could repossess my car, late fees....oh so scary. Next, I called the dealership, they told me that they had fedexed the papers to the credit union weeks ago. So I call the credit union back, and I make them call their lending department and see if they have the papers. They call and it turns out that they have record of my loan approval but no paperwork. At this point I am a little frustrated because the credit union is blaming the dealership and the dealership is blaming the credit union. If the dealership had used fedex, then they would have record of delivery through the tracking number. Someone is lying, oh well, it benefits me because I still have the car and still have no loan in my name, which also means that the dealership has not yet received their funds. I am now leaving it up to the two of them to figure it out. In the meantime, I will continue to drive my free and clear car!

Val's Here!

Greg's best friend is staying with us for the weekend. It is so much fun to have him here. Val is seeing first hand what it is like to have a very active and spirited 18 month old toddler. We pulled out the blue tunnel-o-fun and watched as Greg and MJ both scrambled in.

Today we also visited Hogle Zoo and rode the new endangered species carousel. It was MJ's first merry-go-round, she was scared at first, then she got the hang of it, but it lasted way too long. We got some cute pics though, thanks to Uncle Val on the sidelines.

scared...

content...

Done.

Snow!

We woke up this morning and looked out the window and this is what we saw, five plus inches of snow. I don't think that I was really prepared for it. Two weeks ago it was 80 degrees and then we had a nice week of fall, then just like that, snow (and below freezing temperatures). Two members of our family really liked it however,

The dogs romped around and played in the snow and we finally had to yell at them to get them to come back inside. Here is a picture of Greg, freezing to death, throwing the ball for Daisy.

pics

Sleeping baby and sleepy Daddy

Hiding in the TV cabinet is fun!

Done for now

I had a huge final today in one of my classes. This is the class that we learned all about retirement stuff, it was actually pretty interesting. I am now an expert on IRA's, 401K's, stock bonus plans, etc. The class was only a half semester, hence the final exam today. The second half of the semester will be about gift and estate taxes. But before that all starts I have fall break for a whole week next week. I'm so excited to sleep in and I am going to take some vacations days from work.
Greg and I are also waiting with great anticipation for Val to come and visit in 8 days! We haven't seen him since last year. It's going to fun. The last time he saw MJ, she was only just crawling, now she is running, climbing, escaping, and teething. It will be an interesting learning experience for him since he has a little one on the way. His wife is due sometime in March. We are also very excited for that! We will definitely be driving out to Cincinnati to see the new baby.
In other news, we love our new car! We have had it for two weeks now and I just filled up the gas tank for the first time today. That's awesome!

Dry clothes finally!

Ever since we moved into our new house in April we haven't had a clothes dryer. The dryer we had was electric and the new house didn't have a 220 plug, it only had a gas line hook up. Here was the dilemma, hire an electrician to install a 220 plug or buy a new gas dryer. We first thought that we would just hire the electrician, but after thinking about it some more we decided against that. What if the electrician finds serious problems with the wiring in our house that's from the 1950's? What started as a $100-$200 job just jumped to a $1000 job. No thanks! A new gas dryer it is then. Well we didn't buy the dryer until last week. In the meantime, Greg has been hanging all of our laundry outside on the lines to dry. Hey, its energy efficient but everything is stiff and crunchy.
Last night Greg figured out how to hook up the gas connection to the dryer, it was a little scary messing with natural gas, but now its nice to have fluffy, soft, dryer fresh smelling clothes again!