Labor Day Redefined!

I thought I knew what Labor Day was all about until Labor Day 2011. It will go down in history as the Labor Day of Chaos. The day started off with dropping both vehicles off at the shop to have an oil, lube and filter. Since both shops are close together this was very convenient. We killed the hour or so it took to check out the Saturn and Titan by playing in the isles at Walmart, which was conveniently near by as well. That is when the call came. The Saturn needed $1,800 of work done and it wasn't even worth that much. We had been preparing ourselves for the worst for months as the Saturn has started a slow decline and had been looking at car possibilities, but it always feels like we've been caught off balance by these types of things. While we waited for them to finish the Titan, Steve looked on the Nissan lot and fell in love with a Maxima, but I was not convinced, plus we had other things planned for the day.

We took the Saturn home to rest while we headed downtown to see Perry the Platy-bus. Perry is a favorite character from a favorite cartoon on the Disney channel and we weren't going to miss him on his nationwide tour! We were ALL so excited when we got down to the NASCAR Hall of Fame where Perry was making his appearance. The bus was hooked up inside with Phineas and Ferb video games and other fun stuff.

Outside we had cool Perry benches to sit on and rest our tootsies. Radio Disney was on-site with games and music. The kids got to play several games and had a great time.

After a couple of hours with Perry we started heading home. Steve wanted to stop at Carmax to see what they had on the lot - which was not much. For months, I had been extolling the virtues of the Toyota Camry I had driven in Utah and finally talked Steve into going to the Toyota dealer near our house. We had met the general manager in August when he bought Naomi's princess bike off Craigslist for his daughter. We talked for a good while and he was a really nice guy. I am glad that we did. He had one of his salespeople show Steve several different options in our price range. He also did a side-by-side comparison of the Camry and Maxima which convinced Steve not to get the Maxima. The Nissan salesperson hadn't told us that the Maxima needed premium gasoline. Long story short, we got Steve a sweet deal on a 2008 Camry with only 30,000 miles. Labor Day weekened sales and knowing the general manager helped a lot. Thanks, Donnie! They took the Saturn as a trade and this is what we ended up with.

Steve thought he would miss his Saturn more than he does. The 34 miles to the gallon, compared to 24 miles to the gallon, won him over the first time he didn't have to fill up after driving to work and back a couple of times! He also does not miss the clutch in traffic.

As if this was not enough already, we then hurried to the Elder's Quorum Labor Day party at the Richardson's home. We stayed for a bit and chatted, but were soon off to do a crossing over for Garrison Stewart at his house. We had been trying to get it in since July, but there was not a Wednesday night that work for both parties at the same time.

Okay, the day was finally over! We all got home and collapsed into bed about 9:00 p.m. This type of exhausted was good though because we had enjoyed a full day of fun and surprises - but I am not encouraging any more days like this anytime soon.