Ghetto Hoo-Ride

Our family has been in need of a new vehicle for a long time. I've just been too cheap to admit it. Who cares if we didn't all fit in it, the air conditioning and heat didn't work, the cd player was broken, the vhs player was broken, there was a huge crack in the windshield, and the power steering belt, that also controlled the coolant, fell off every other week, resulting in the van over-heating and needing to be towed home? We didn't have a car payment and that, my friends, was all I cared about.

I guess Adam had had enough, after being towed home twice in one month. He pulled the we're getting a new vehicle and I don't care what you say. He was right. It was definitely time.

We started our car search with a few must-haves. First, air conditioning. We haven't had an air conditioned car since 2005. I'm for reals! I was pregnant for 3 of those past summers. I remember, when I was pregnant with Jude, the temperature was 100 degrees with high humidity and I had to take Marky home in the middle of the day, on route 51 in Pittsburgh, going to the South Hills. If anyone has driven on this road, you know I had to stop at a red light every 5 seconds. It was so hot and humid that I let Marky, Jagger, and Jet wear nothing but underwear and diapers; and at every stop light I turned around and sprayed them with a spray bottle full of water.

Lesson 99: spraying your kids down like a bad dog, because you don't have any other way to cool them off in your car = white trash

The next thing on our list, seating for 8 or more. I told him we needed something that at least sat 9, but all we could find were those 15 passenger vans, and all the reviews we read said they did horrible in the snow. HA! We live in Pittsburgh.......on a hill! Adam said he didn't want a "Yoder-toter" anyway.

Adam searched for weeks, until he found a really good deal on a used Ford Expedition. It sat 8 and had 4-wheel drive. We drove all the way to Ohio to check it out. Adam fell in love immediately. All I could see was the price of gas. (It actually isn't too bad. I was pleasantly surprised.) Needless to say, we bought it. Here it is.

On the way home, Adam kept going over the speed limit. It wasn't his fault. The ride was so smooth. Nothing like the van that shook violently after you hit 60 mph, shaking your brain loose. I finally told him, "Please be careful in this thing. The police are going to be looking for a reason to pull you over."

"Why would they want to pull me over?" he asked.

I chuckled, "Because it looks like a druggie-hoo-ride."

"No it doesn't." Adam got defensive.

"Honey, there's no Ford emblem on the front, like the person who owned it before wanted people to think it's an Escalade, the front windows are extremely tinted, and we have rims for crying out loud! This used to be a druggie-hoo-ride!"

Adam started to laugh. "Yeah, it probably was."

The funny thing is, I'm the one who got pulled over. It wasn't even a month after we bought it, when I was driving down my own town's street, I passed a police car that busted a U in the middle of the street just to pull me over. I wish everyone could have seen this officer's face when he peeked in the back of my vehicle to see a car full of children.

Lesson 100: getting pulled over, because your car looks like a drug dealers, and surprising the officer, because it's obvious the only kind of dealin' you're doing, is dealin' with your ridiculous life, and he can read that ALL over your face = white trash

He gave me a warning, and made Adam remove the tint from the front windows. Now it doesn't look as suspicious. We definitely need to get one of those family stick figure decals for my back window. That way the police know we need the car for the seats, not because we gangsta.

But hey, it's got air!!!

Trash Tree

The Christmas tree is one of our family's favorite traditions. We bundle up every year and head to Grupps Christmas Tree Farm. These very sweet people hand us a saw and a cart, and send us into a field to pick out and cut down the tree of our choice. The kids love this. I love that it's such a safe environment that I don't have to worry about my kids running ahead and losing themselves in the labyrinth of trees. Not that they are ever hard to find, I usually follow the loud squeals of delight and trail of snow angels made between trees.

This is the tree Adam and I picked out.

I called the kids and told them to hurry up because Dad was cutting down our tree. They all ran, screaming with excitement. I wish I could have gotten their expressions when they saw this pathetic twig. We even took the joke so far as to make them pose with the tree so I could take a picture. They were so depressed. They didn't find this as funny as Adam and I did.

After the kids realized we weren't serious about that tree, their spirits were renewed. We trudged through snow for a long time before finding the best tree for our house. Adam cut it down with Stone's help.

We took our tree home and decorated it the next day. (The day we got it, Adam threw the tree in the house and went to work. He doesn't have ANY days off this month.) Jude and Jovie really enjoyed the decorating this year, but they still don't get all the rules of tree decorating. First we had to explain to Jude that we only had a certain amount of ornaments and a whole tree to cover.

Then, I've had to tell them every day since, that just because something has a hook or something resembling a hook, that doesn't mean it's an ornament. Every day I come down to find random crap hanging on our tree's bottom branches. First, Jovie found a Halloween spider and hung it up. Nothing says "Merry Christmas" like a big hairy spider. Then, Jude made paper monkeys at pre-school. Notice the hook shaped tails? The thing that took the cake was when Jude found a piece of cardboard that was connected to a pair of gloves, price tag still on it, and hung it on the tree, just because it had a hook. I told him it wasn't an ornament and we had a 15 minute argument about it. He just kept insisting, "Look at the hook!"

Lesson 98: hanging Halloween decorations and garbage on your Christmas tree = white trash

For all you wondering, yes, they are still there. It makes for good conversation.

Merry Christmas!!