forgotten moments of news

i tend to forget the fun little details that happen until i download off my camera and think, 'oh yeah!'...
so here you are.
excitingly for nick, we found him a car!! it's a very sweet deal.

it's a 2000 toyota highlander with about 120k miles on it. not so swanky that he feels pretentious, but swanky enough to be cool. he bartered with them a bit and ended up settling on an even $10,000, which is below the kelly blue book value, and just about exactly within the budget he'd decided on!
perfect.
his first choices were either a tacoma or a 4-runner, but i think god knew what he needed. it's a v4 engine, which is better gas mileage, it still has plenty of space in the back for hauling stuff around, and it's so much more spacious than a 4-runner! it's like the perfect combination of the 2 cars, plus added bonus space!
hopefully his bank loan can go through today and he can go pick it up. the past two weeks, he's been driving me to school in the mornings then using my car to get to work, then coming back to pick me up in the afternoons. not the most efficient use of gas, but it's been so fun to have an extra hour of quality time! we've decided that car time is really our favorite way to hang out.

and speaking of nick, yesterday was his birthday, along with small group night. come to find out, 2 other people's birthdays were this week as well, so we had a big ole combined party! i spliced together each person's favorite things and came up with 'the reading pirates of hazzard party'. it was a whole lot of fun.

nate loves dukes of hazzard, nick is a pirate at heart, and liz is the book queen of the world. i made them each banners, of course. what's a birthday without a banner?
then we all dressed up in piratey garb and growled at each other a lot.

i've decided i really enjoy hostessing parties. it's just fun.

here's my favorite present to nick :-) his face isn't really saying he hearts me all that much. that's why he needs the hat, to proclaim the truth regardless of what his face might be saying at the moment. i think he was going for the mysterious gq look.

yesterday was also art club day. i think the group this year is really going to be committed and gung-ho. i'm looking forward to seeing what the year brings about.

of course, art club and small group both have their own blogs (why not?!) so if you want to know more about our antics, check those out!