Birthday Boy

Today is my son's birthday. He turned eighteen.

Earlier this year my husband was talking to a man who had an older Ford Bronco parked in his driveway. Because of my husband's work he ended up going to see this man a few times. Finally he asked about the Bronco. He had bought it for his daughter a long time ago and basically it was now sitting unused since she was long gone to college. It needed transmission work but if my husband was interested he'd sell it to him for $500.

Neighbor Dean, the mechanic, took a little ride with my husband to check it out. He thought it looked good. On the internet, the same year Bronco was going for about $2500. We decided to take a chance and we bought it.

Over the months it got a new radiator, rebuilt transmission, and a few other things. It seemed to be one of those things where you got one thing fixed and another broke. It was becoming an automobile money pit. It wasn't totally reliable yet so it sat on the driveway until we could get some other things paid off. Meanwhile Wil was driving my husband's truck back and forth to school.

My husband was becoming frustrated with the whole ordeal and last week was moaning about it to me. I mentioned I had seen an ad for GMC where they were giving "employee pricing", blah blah blah. He went to talk to the guy we've been buying new trucks from over the years. He came home and talked to me and I said "let's do it."

It's nothing super fancy, but it is definately trustworthy. Wil is now the proud owner of a new 2008 GMC pickup truck.

A few weeks ago he also started doing volunteer work at the same place where I do my volunteer stuff, Hoffman Hospice. He doesn't do visits but he works in the office doing miscellaneous chores for an hour or so after school about three times a week. Well, granted, he gets a school credit for every 15 hours he works, but he enjoys doing it and the people all tell me how polite he is and what a nice boy he is. And it's a good thing to have "volunteer work" on your resume.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WIL!