Just before Christmas break, Allen received the "Top Performer" award at work--the highest award you can get at Bayer. His boss praised him up and down for meeting his goals, learning new skills, streamlining some new processes in the entire drafting department, and going above and beyond his assignments. No surprises here!
Allen used some of the money that came with this award to BUY A SNOWBLOWER. After thirteen years of shoveling snow by hand, enough is enough. Two days after Christmas, he and Brig drove to Pocatello in a blizzard to pick up this heavy-duty machine, which will undoubtedly see constant use in the next three or four (or five, let's be honest) months.
Although Allen is excited about his new machine, a snowblower isn't exactly the most thrilling "Christmas gift to yourself."
But wait, there's more!
Back in August, I suggested to Allen that we sell his 1998 Toyota Tacoma, because there was such a high demand for used trucks, and we could get the best price for it. He immediately resisted, but I was prepared with my impeccable logic and powers of persuasion. His truck was getting old, it was barely shy of 200,000 miles, it was starting to need more repairs . . . and if we ALSO sold our little camper, we could combine the money made on both sales to buy a nicer, newer truck--he could drive Truman's van around in the mean time, while Truman is in Korea.
We sold the truck first, for the same price we bought it for, four years ago. Then we sold the camper, for three times what we paid for it. Since September, Allen has been obsessing about trucks and constantly looking at used trucks for sale on the Internet. I feel bad that, even though it was my idea, I was content to just let that money sit in the bank . . . maaaaaaaybe until forever.
Long story short: yesterday we drove down to Utah and paid cash for a new (to us) truck! It's been a pain being without four-wheel drive, especially during the last five or six weeks. And it's nice to upgrade to something newer, more powerful, and with room for our whole family.
It's a 2009 Nissan Titan PRO-4X, and it came with a bed extender and some after-market wheels, tires, front bumper, bed liner. Everything runs like a top, and Allen is so excited. Now instead of obsessing about buying a truck, he is obsessing about his own truck. I love seeing him so excited--he works so hard for our family and deserves to have something he loves.
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| He was hoping for a black or grey truck, and would probably never choose red on purpose, but we both agree that at least it's not white. |
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| Bye-bye, ol' Taco! You were a faithful friend. |
I made this little advertisement video of our camper when we were selling it--it was so fun to have, but we didn't really use it for camping--it was mostly a "guest house" for visitors, and only really usable in the summer months.
1 comment:
The camper three times what you paid! Bravo! Bravo! Mike’s Aunt used to say, about certain things, “That’s just happy.” And that’s how these Allen gifts sound. Just happy! (And being without a snowblower in Soda makes me think of my dad being without a lawn mower with an engine on the acre of yard we grew up with. Just a push mower with a rotating blade. Like Allen with his snowblower, no one could argue he didn’t earn that real lawn mower when it finally came.)
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