La Famille Armstrong

Also, the car situation is not looking so great. It was a bit more expensive for all the stuff on the car... window controller command center needs replaced as well as the timing belt and possibly other stuff associated with that. So, those 2 things plus the tow, worst case scenario would be about $875. I talked to the person who sold it to us and she's willing to pay 1/2 the cost or (since she's had a couple higher offers) to take care of it, we'd give her the car back and she'd give us our first payment back as well. Ugh, what to do! My gut is saying to just start from scratch again. At the end of this week (after getting our $500 back) we'll have a bigger chunk of cash to put towards a car. Not that she's giving us a bum deal or anything but we just weren't planning on spending near $3000 for a car. And really, we don't have enough $$$ to pay for 1/2 of the repairs plus our next payment in 1.5 weeks. Sounds like the choice is kind of made for me :-)

I guess I'll probably be looking for a new car then... if you find a nice/not embarrassing to drive car for around $1500 let me know! I have our Escape until Mark gets back, we talked about me stealing the car once a week to still go out to Jeanne's... so maybe in another 2 weeks we'll be able to buy a different car outright. Maybe I'll even just rent a car 1 other day a week to work for Jeanne... a month of that would ensure I could get a nicer car... hmmm! Be praying, as usual. 

#1 Asher only gagged after eating most of his banana so it wasn't an all day thing.

#2 Asher was sitting in his high chair... the fountain from his mouth mostly landed right in the tray :) Nice visual huh?

Anyway. I got a car finally! I'm able to pay for it by the work I'm doing for Jeanne again... I went to college with the gal who sold it to us and we now go to the same church so she's letting me make a couple separate payments on it. The bad news is that it stalled once and I had to get a jump to get it going again and yesterday it died again but only to be towed to the Ford dealership here in McMinnville... where incidentally, our other car was finished being serviced (luckily that was free!). Anyway, so we'll see what's wrong with it. While we were driving earlier in the day one of the rear windows fell partway down the door and we couldn't get it to roll back up... but, good thing that happened b/c if it had rolled up we probably would have just found a ride home and left the car in the parking lot for a few days... which may have gone on past a week since Mark is going out of town today! Talk about a run-on sentence!! We should find out tomorrow what the cost of repairs will be... someone from Les Schwab had a theory which is only one filter or one part that may need replaced... we'll be praying about it for sure. And we'll probably be able to knock a little off the price of the car since we only got it last Saturday and already it was not even a running car! The car was a great deal though... valued at least over $3500 through kbb.com and we got it for $2000. It's a 2000 Ford Focus and it's perfect for me to be driving around - once it's actually up and running again :-) 

I've been booking more photo shoots and I'm actually all caught up on the editing which is a great feat for me! I have another shoot this weekend... Austie's sister from North Bend is coming up and we're going to go crazy doing lots of stuff in the studio. Both Jeanne and I will get some great stuff for stock and Austie will also get some awesome shots for her makeup portfolio. Here's a photo from Matt's senior photo shoot...

 and another from the shoot I did 2 weekends ago. 

Well, thank goodness I'll be busy this week b/c Mark will be gone with his boss on business for almost a week... hopefully Asher is good for me! Pray for strength, patience and endurance!!!!!