Today we said goodbye to my dear first car, Camry Toyota.She and I became acquainted in the summer of 1999 when I bought her from
an older gentleman who had babied her for 6 years. She had been well maintained (washed, oil changes, you name it) by this gentleman so, as my parents had told me, I felt like I had hit a gold mine. To make it even better, it was a Toyota and would run forever.
A year after I bought her she and I got in a wreck. It was really not any fault of hers but of mine. If I hadn't been thinking of the guy I had recently been dating and singing to the song "Aaaaaala Bamba", I would not have been in LALA land and would have seen that the 5 cars in front of me had stopped to let someone cross the crosswalk (ooopsies). Luckily, I think I was the one most hurt. The airbags deployed and I was scraped pretty badly from them on my chest, left arm, and left side of my face along my chin. I think sometimes those airbags do more damage than good. (I'm not knocking the airbags...honest. I know they save lives.) Needless to say I thought my car was totaled. Luckily my dear dad found a good mechanic and it was fixed and looked as good as new about six weeks later.
In the fall of 2000, after I got the car back, Rex and I started dating. He had his little red Toyota truck and I had my nice blue Toyota car. We were destined to be together. These two would soon become great friends and co-exist in the same parking lot side by side.
In August 2001, our little Blue Camry drove us to the temple to be married on the 18th of August and then to our reception where it was decorated and painted on. The message on the back window that night was: "Just" (crossed out) with "Finally" written above it "Married". It then drove us to where we stayed for two nights and then onto the airport for our honeymoon.
A week and a half later, it did finally find it's way to the same parking
lot as Rex's little red truck and they were happily side by side.
Camry brought us to where we are today in May 2002 for Rex's new job. She and I both had some big time adjusting to do with all that summer heat. I registered her and got her licensed so she was legal to drive here.
Camry brought home from the hospital our two oldest boys,
Evan and Mason, when they were born.
She made many trips back and forth to Utah and
took us to Disneyland a few times.
Our good ole' Camry - for the past 1 and 1/2 years, you have been misplaced since Sienna took your place in our garage. You are a tired ole' gal - with over 200,000 miles logged and lots of maintenance required the past few years. You are 16 years old - an old woman in car years. No wonder your air conditioning didn't work well, your radio antennae broke, your original belts and hoses needed to be replaced over a year ago (finally), and your battery needed lots of recharging.
A few months ago, as you were just sitting idly in our side driveway with no attention being paid to you, we realized we had been paying to have you insured and be registered each year and just sitting there. We realized that it was probably time to let you have a better home - a place where you could be useful and helpful. At that point we decided to take your license plates off and take you off our insurance. When I took your licence plates to the DMV I was sad. I almost asked if I could keep at least one to remember you by, but then I thought of how useless it would be just cluttering up our already cluttery house. So I took a picture to remember you by.
You have lived a great life with us and have been THE BEST car and now you must move on to be a way around town for Kayla, our Bishop's daughter. Today You and I spent two hours together getting vaccuumed washed and cleaned to be ready to be taken to your new home. As I cleaned and vaccuumed the thought came to me, "This is a really nice car. To bad you have to get rid of it." It is definitely worth more to me than we sold it for.
And so for now:
SO LONG! FAREWELL! AUF WIEDERSEHN GOODBYE!
WE LOVE YOU!!!
(And now I will bawl my eyes out)
an older gentleman who had babied her for 6 years. She had been well maintained (washed, oil changes, you name it) by this gentleman so, as my parents had told me, I felt like I had hit a gold mine. To make it even better, it was a Toyota and would run forever.
A year after I bought her she and I got in a wreck. It was really not any fault of hers but of mine. If I hadn't been thinking of the guy I had recently been dating and singing to the song "Aaaaaala Bamba", I would not have been in LALA land and would have seen that the 5 cars in front of me had stopped to let someone cross the crosswalk (ooopsies). Luckily, I think I was the one most hurt. The airbags deployed and I was scraped pretty badly from them on my chest, left arm, and left side of my face along my chin. I think sometimes those airbags do more damage than good. (I'm not knocking the airbags...honest. I know they save lives.) Needless to say I thought my car was totaled. Luckily my dear dad found a good mechanic and it was fixed and looked as good as new about six weeks later.
In the fall of 2000, after I got the car back, Rex and I started dating. He had his little red Toyota truck and I had my nice blue Toyota car. We were destined to be together. These two would soon become great friends and co-exist in the same parking lot side by side.
In August 2001, our little Blue Camry drove us to the temple to be married on the 18th of August and then to our reception where it was decorated and painted on. The message on the back window that night was: "Just" (crossed out) with "Finally" written above it "Married". It then drove us to where we stayed for two nights and then onto the airport for our honeymoon.
A week and a half later, it did finally find it's way to the same parking
lot as Rex's little red truck and they were happily side by side.
Camry brought us to where we are today in May 2002 for Rex's new job. She and I both had some big time adjusting to do with all that summer heat. I registered her and got her licensed so she was legal to drive here.
Camry brought home from the hospital our two oldest boys,
Evan and Mason, when they were born.
She made many trips back and forth to Utah and
took us to Disneyland a few times.
Our good ole' Camry - for the past 1 and 1/2 years, you have been misplaced since Sienna took your place in our garage. You are a tired ole' gal - with over 200,000 miles logged and lots of maintenance required the past few years. You are 16 years old - an old woman in car years. No wonder your air conditioning didn't work well, your radio antennae broke, your original belts and hoses needed to be replaced over a year ago (finally), and your battery needed lots of recharging.
A few months ago, as you were just sitting idly in our side driveway with no attention being paid to you, we realized we had been paying to have you insured and be registered each year and just sitting there. We realized that it was probably time to let you have a better home - a place where you could be useful and helpful. At that point we decided to take your license plates off and take you off our insurance. When I took your licence plates to the DMV I was sad. I almost asked if I could keep at least one to remember you by, but then I thought of how useless it would be just cluttering up our already cluttery house. So I took a picture to remember you by.
You have lived a great life with us and have been THE BEST car and now you must move on to be a way around town for Kayla, our Bishop's daughter. Today You and I spent two hours together getting vaccuumed washed and cleaned to be ready to be taken to your new home. As I cleaned and vaccuumed the thought came to me, "This is a really nice car. To bad you have to get rid of it." It is definitely worth more to me than we sold it for.
And so for now:
SO LONG! FAREWELL! AUF WIEDERSEHN GOODBYE!
WE LOVE YOU!!!
(And now I will bawl my eyes out)
4 comments:
So sad, I hope she is as stalwart for Kayla as she was for you.
It's german, auf wiedersehn.
Thanks Natalie for the correct spelling. I changed it
I love Toyotas too. They are such good, reliable cars! Sad that you have to say goodbye when there are so many memories attached.
what a great post! you crack me up. I know how you feel, i felt the same way about my old car before it caught on fire on the freeway. Our goodbye wasn't as happy as yours:) Farewell, good ol' car!
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