Another busy & productive weekend -- Rod, tell them what they've won!

Where've we been lately? Well ...

Friday night, we bought a new car! With the Civvy at 118K miles and starting to get expensive to maintain, we needed to do this now, so, behold the 2007 Prius!

This car is more awesome than we even knew -- everything is so sci-fi, like the key that isn't a key (just a thick card thing), that you don't even have to insert in a lock or ignition -- you just get close to the car with the key, and it unlocks, and then you sit down in the driver's seat and hit the start button, key in your pocket or bag or whatever, and ta-da! You're started. When you're sitting idle, the engine is OFF (a disconcerting feeling, to say the least), and then you hit the gas, and it takes off -- lotta get-up-and-go in this thing, and it gets 40-60 mpg! There's a back-up camera, the controls (e.g. for air conditioning and the stereo) are on a touch screen, and the brakes feed the battery -- it is waaay cool. We love it! The buying was pretty easy, after R. got our financing online and got quotes from like 15 area dealers via email; a $500 deposit with the fleet manager (our salesman of record) secured the car we wanted in our first choice color with the right option package, and we went to the dealership Friday evening to take possession. The only hitch was when we got sent over to the finance manager, whose job it was to sell us more "products" such as prepaid maintenance, paint protection, and an extended warranty (altogether another $5,000 or so to conveniently add to our buying price, of course at interest) -- thanks, but nooooo. And boy, was he persistent -- but seriously, NO, dude. Finally he ended up beating our already kickass interest rate on the loan (6.25) -- so we got it at 5.9%, and the car was ours. (The Internet rules, y'all.)

So! Saturday ... first up, the hospital tour, which was very helpful and informative; the SF Kaiser facility, where we'll be delivering, is new and modern, and very progressive in terms of the way they manage labor & delivery. All the L&D rooms are private, with private bathrooms including showers, and have pullout beds for the mom's partner to sleep in; they encourage you to move around during labor, and do only intermittent monitoring (so you're not chained to the bed the whole time); they offer all levels of meds and whatnot (solely your choice); they have lactation consultants and all kind of new-baby educators and support people on call; and the NICU, should you need it, is just a few steps down the hall. We felt pretty good after that.

When we got home, R. spent the afternoon and evening putting together the changing table, which had arrived from Target.com a couple of days ago -- it turned out to be real wood, not pressboard, and it actually matches the crib P&A gave us! Amazing. It looks really nice, very sturdy and capacious -- we already loaded it with diapers & a bunch of tiny onesies. R. also broke out the baby monitor my mom gave us, and we tested its night vision -- awesome!

This morning, we got up early to get concert tickets (how you like our priorities? heh!), then watched the Yankees till we went to Celia's with Tom and our friends Ian & Kusum (whose baby is expected about 3 weeks after ours) for probably the last time till after Kid A makes his or her appearance ... ohhh, I am gonna order a tall Dos Equis in a frosty frosty glass, and it is gonna be sooooo goood ... anyway, Kusum & I had a belly-off in the parking lot on the way out: