Zoom-Zoom-Zoom

I remember Matt's and my first car. Okay, so my parents owned the vehicle, they just let us use it while we were in school. It was also the same car that I and three of my brothers had driven in high school. It was a 1989 Mitsubishi Precis -- The Mitsu. (My brothers had a much vulgar name for the car.) It was a tin can, but it was a ride nonetheless. Matt and I poured a lot of money into that car. We redid the exhaust system, the brakes, and who knows what else. It was a five-door (hatchback) gold car. Every time we stopped at a red light, we prayed we wouldn't be stuck there long because the car heated faster than an oven. It always seemed the car was "red" hot! We decided one Saturday afternoon to take a drive up to Salt Lake City . By the time we got to Lindon, the engine was overheating; so, we got off the freeway and turned around. Another annoying thing about the car was that you had to remember that you left the headlights on because there was no annoying ding to remind you that you had. Both Matt and I had left them on and killed the battery. We had that car for about one year. When my parents tried to drive it back down to Panaca, they got about 15 miles (to Santaquin), and the car wouldn't got over a hill. They left it in Provo for someone else to get rid of it. Ah, the Mitsu, true to it's worth down to the end.

Here's a shot of Matt and my brother jumping the car after Matt left the headlights on during my niece's dance recital -- May 2001.

Our second car again was financed by my parents, but this time we were paying the for it. We really needed a car for me to drive to Springville from Provo to work everyday while I was teaching. My parents surprised us with the car one time when they drove up to visit us. It was a white, 1996 Mercury Sable LS. It was a very good car with many miles on it because the previous owner commuted a couple of hours several days a week for work. We didn't mind. We owned that car for six years. It was dependable until recently when it hit over 200,000 miles. I started getting nervous that it would die. Besides that, the A/C died last summer, and despite our money and efforts in fixing it, the A/C remains dead. Thus, it was time to look for a new car.

This shot is one I took of Matt after we drove our car all the way to his parents' house in Virginia -- June 2002 (It's cropped funny because I scanned it in from my scrapbook and had to crop all of the other stuff out.)

For the last couple of months, Matt and I began researching cars. We decided to go with a new car. I know, there are many reasons not to buy a new car, but we had some dealer incentives through Matt's work that would save us money on interest rates and such. Anyway, we settled on the new 2007 Mazda3. I'm sure I don't have to tell you the about the haggling we had to do at the dealership to talk them all the way down to what we could afford. Believe me when I say we did our homework. I mean, we had a spreadsheet with options and all the costs related with a car that we could find. We even talked to a car salesman in our ward. We had it figured out. Of course, the dealership will find any way possible to make money, and they don't want you to know what it is they're throwing in the price to raise it. Anyway, we got a fabulous deal on the car, and I absolutely love to drive it. It's a fun car. So, here's a picture of our new car -- this isn't our exact car, but a similar one:

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