Our New Family Car

Since Amelia is taking her morning nap, I figured I would at least attempt to update my blog this morning.  I've got a slice of homemade cinnamon swirl banana bread and a cup of pumpkin spice coffee.

We didn't plan on buying another car so soon, but since I had one hell of a time trying to get a hold of the school district regarding transportation for Carleigh... here we are.  Honestly, I spent an entire morning trying to speak to someone, but was met with automated phone recordings and got no where.  Since the school district waited until the last minute to send out school information, this whole transportation dilemma wasn't a surprise to me.  I do not understand how these schools can be such slackers, wait, yes I do.  They take our tax dollars and then beg for more because they don't "have any money".  If only schools were ran like businesses...

Anyway, Heath has been looking at Jaguar XJ's for awhile and really wanted one.  He found the perfect one, but we weren't sure if we wanted to spend the amount of money the dealership was asking.  Heath continued to search for other XJ's, but we went right back to the one at the dealership.  Heath made an offer and they somewhat agreed on the price discussed.  So Heath went to the bank, got a cashier's check for the amount discussed, and we went over to the dealership on Friday afternoon.  Heath test drove it and told the dealership we wanted it.  We had two different people come in to tell us that we were basically stealing the car from them.  They made zero money on the deal.  They bought the car from an Audi dealership for a lot more than what we paid to take it off the lot.  The sales manager had to call the owner of the dealership to get approval for us to even buy it at the price that we did.  Who was going to say no to someone coming in with a check?  Seriously... lol  We are now happy owner's of two (yes, TWO!) Jaguar's.

We bought a 2006 Jaguar XJ8 Vanden Plas.  Here's some picture of our new sexy beast.  And yes, this thing is a beast.  It came with the 5% tint all around.  Huge plus!  It's a long wheel base, so it's about a foot longer than my S-Type.  There is so much leg room.  I thought my car was large, but no, this new car is the actual boat.

The car has mink floor mats.  That's right, PETA.  Our Jaguar has MINK(!!) floor mats.  No one is allowed to put their dirty ass shoes in our car.  I took this car out to do my errands on Saturday.  Since I had to go to Sam's Club and Albertson's, I wanted to see just how much room this car had after I put all of the bulky stuff in it.  I might just "steal" this car to go get my groceries and Sam's Club runs done all of the time now.

On Sunday, we took the new car for a cruise through Red Rock Canyon.  It was the most comfortable ride through the mountains we have ever taken.  Amelia slept through most of it and Carleigh was enjoying the views.  We will definitely be going back up there in the cooler months to take a hike on some of the easier trails in the area.

These are just a few of the pictures taken during our scenic drive.

Now that we have our second car, I can give Carleigh a ride to/from school every day without worrying how the school district will screw it up.  I really hope things get better and the school can redeem themselves.  I am not very impressed with their track record so far.  But thanks to their inability to answer phone calls, we have a lovely new car parked in our garage.

Abandoned My Blog

There has been so much going on here, that I didn't have much time to update my blog.  We had a lot of stress with the house for a couple of weeks.  That wore me out.  I didn't feel like doing much of anything since I was working my insane amount of overtime too.  I'll save the house stuff for another blog.  I could write a book about it.  I will completely relax once the keys are in our hands, which should be around September 5th since our our close date was pushed back a bit.

My birthday was on Thursday.  Heath & I took Thursday & Friday off so we could celebrate.  On Thursday, Heath rented a Porsche Panamera for me.  It was a neat little car, but it had so much technology in it.  I didn't know what half the buttons in that car were for.  It was fun driving it up and down Las Vegas Blvd.

We stopped in Gold & Silver Pawn (where Pawn Stars is filmed) in the morning before heading down to Fremont Street.  They weren't filming the show, so we decided to check the place out.  They had a few things I'd love to purchase, but I'd need to win the lottery first.  Once we left the pawn shop, we went to Fremont Street.  It had been a really long time since we were last down there, so I wanted to hangout down there for awhile.  We did some gambling, but didn't win anything big.  Boo!

For lunch, we drove to the Stratosphere to have lunch at Top of the World.  It's the restaurant in the actual tower that overlooks the valley.  It also rotates.  We got a view of the entire valley within an hour.  I ordered the salmon BLT for lunch.  It was the best BLT ever!  We had a mini red velvet cake for dessert.  For two meals, dessert and a few drinks, the bill wasn't that expensive.  Definitely going to go back there for dinner some night and enjoy some wine too.

After lunch, we headed over the to outdoor premium outlets not far from the Stratosphere.  I found a Dooney & Bourke outlet store.  I had to go in there and raid the store.  I love their purses, but rarely ever buy them because of the price.  I found a new purse in there that was half off.  Since it was less than $100 for it (after the discount was taken) I bought it.

On Friday, Heath & I went to Mount Charleston to get away from the Las Vegas heat.  It was a cool 70 degrees with rain in the forecast.  We enjoyed a delicious lunch at the lodge and had fried cheesecake for dessert.  Yes, you read that right.  Fried cheesecake.  Once we were done with lunch, we hiked on one of the trails.  It was so relaxing and the views were beautiful.  It started to rain on our way back down, so we had to end our hiking a little early.  We can hike another trail whenever we have time to go up again.  We don't go hiking anymore since Carleigh is too little.  Some of the trails up there are a little strenuous and I don't think it's a good idea to take a three year old in tow.

The rest of our weekend will be spent relaxing before going back to work.  It was nice to finally take time off for a little vacation.  The only other time I have off from work is when I am sick and curled up watching TV. So it was really great to get away from work to do something fun.  I hope there is overtime available on my return so I can collect a lot more money again.

I'll end my long post with some pictures from Top of the World & Mount Charleston.