three-oh

Mike turned thirty this week. The big three-oh. I think I made a bigger deal out of it than him, it just feels so monumental. I still picture my parents being 30-something. They will forever be 30-somethings, so us being 30-somethings is weird to me... all these thoughts are floating around my head, like ohshit we are grownups and we are responsible for all these people and we have to pay for three weddings and three kids colleges and prom dresses and car insurance and "WHERE-ARE-WE-GOING-TO-RETIRE?!?" [But, really, I'd like to retire somewhere warm and beachy.]

Me being the social person that I am had grand plans of having a big party or barbeque, but when I asked what he wanted to do he said "no parties, too stressful" and Addie chimed in with "daddy doesn't have any friends except mommy!" True words spoken by a three year old. :P

When I asked Mike how he felt he was all "my joints are really achey" lol.

and then he said he wanted to buy a truck (is there such a thing as a one-third-life crisis??).

I felt like he deserved whatever he wanted on his bday (I got him a small camping Weber grill that we won't use for camping (long story), a new wedding band -- that is too big and has to be exchanged, and we also got two of those anti-gravity chairs for the yard -- not really bday presents for him, but I'll count it!) so when he said he also wanted a truck, I was like "ehhhh  whatever happened to our no gift rule??" (for some reason I think it only applies to when Mike is doing the gifting :P.)

But, he didn't have to do much to persuade me. His company car is going away in a month or two (he got a new job that requires more air travel, not car travel) and we do need a truck. He takes at least one load to the dump every couple weeks, plus we are still working on the house every chance we can get, shoving wood/concrete/debris into a nice SUV isn't ideal.

So we agreed that he could get a cheap one, but my deal was we had to pay for it in cash. No car loans. So we started scouring Craigslist for the cheapest trucks we could find. I guess my love for all things old has rubbed off on him, because he was drawn to all the really vintage looking "cute" trucks. You know, the kind you'd see driving in a parade or something. He found three that looked perfect and according to the ads "drove great" "run smoothly" "perfect vehicle for hauling!". Yeah what a load of BS.

Long story short, we bought a truck. I told him I'd meet him at the car wash. Got to the car wash, it was closed. He couldn't start the truck back up. Had to call the seller for help (we were literally a mile from his house). Mike decided that since we had already spent 3 hours of our night dealing with this truck, that we'd skip a fancy bday dinner and just get Subway. The girls and I left and drove to Subway. Mike never showed up (It was one block from the carwash place). I guess the guy helped him get going again, so he finally made it to us after we had all eaten his bday dinner without him. He goes to start the truck, it doesn't start. He calls the guy again. This is where I start getting pissed. It was 8:00. The girls kept asking to sing daddy happy birthday. It wasn't fun anymore. We stayed in the parking lot for a good 45 minutes while they tried to start it. At one point Mike told me to leave, but as I started driving off Addie screamed "we cant leave Daddy on his birthday!" and she was right, so we stuck it out. At the end of the night, I called out to Mike that we were done. Get our money back. Let's go home. The seller was nice and gave us our money back (minus $50 that they had already spent :/)

It was sucky. Mike was bummed. We went home without the truck, ate greek yogurt/coolwhip pie that he had requested (this pie is so good, you'd never know it was low cal -- just a tub of fat free coolwhip, two little things of strawberry greek yogurt (or any flavor) frozen in a graham cracker pie crust), the girls talked about how old he is (they picked out the candles and told me that we'd reuse them for my bday, ha!), we got the girls in bed and that was that.

I thought the whole truck idea was over. errm apparently not.

Flash forward one day. He re-bought the truck. ::headmeetdesk:: This time the seller and him went to a shop to get the starter fixed, it also needs a new carburetor, so the seller knocked $400 off the price. He was able to drive it home, drive it to the gas station, drive it all around town, he loves it and says it makes him feel manly, so if he's happy, I'm happy.

(PS: Can you tell he's lost 25+ pounds? Rarrrr <3)