Trip

Monday marked 7 years of Styles and I being married, although I only count it as 6, he was in another country and living another life for a year. Either way it's an occasion to be marked, and what better way to mark it than a long drive and spending money!
After a quick check in at his office and some packing/planning on my part we headed down to the Twin Cities. I have been looking into buying a truck for a while now and the market for them is much better down in the cities, well better for buyers, worse for sellers.
We checked out one truck a bit north of the cities(a 1999 Dodge 2500, with about 122,000 miles) but I was disappointed, it was kinda rusty(damn you MN for being a salt state!) the engine sounded funny to me, the truck was quite banged up like it was a work vehicle or something and the sales man had never even driven it, the only thing he knew about it was it cam from a dealership over the river(in WI) I thanked him and said we had more to do around the town but mentally I checked that truck off.
It was getting into the evening and Styles professed to being hungry, there was a motel right near the truck dealership but I had my heart set on Johnny Carinos for dinner and I knew that was likely to be found down in the Cities, not up in Forest Lake. However the motel is a chain, and we love staying with them(they offer a military discount and they are QUIET)so we went into the lobby and informed the desk clerk we wanted to stay at their(chain) motel but we wanted good dinner, she was helpful and let us steal some internet to look for a Johnny Carinos...only to find there is none in the Cities! *cries* well Olive Garden sounded good too so we found a motel that was near-ish to one.
Getting to the motel proved interesting(yaya for construction!) but we got there and got our room key, it was after 8PM by this time so we decided to head right over to the foods, I mentioned we were heading over to Olive Garden and the receptionist mentioned that there was another Italian restaurant that was closer, a bit fancier but we had never heard of it so decided to give it a shot.
This is the outside of Bella, see the torches? always trust a eating establishment with torches :)

This is the inside, well the one that turned out anyway, Styles didn't have his good camera with him, just my little CoolPix
Styles felt we needed to capture a moment, I felt the need to be relaxed and content :)
The next day we spent driving around and looking at trucks, we only drove one more but we looked at(poked at) about 5, after much talking and working with one dealership a vehicle was settled on. Working things out between a bank in Grand Forks and a dealership in Burnsville was interesting but we got everything sorted in the end.
heading back I guess Styles got board.. <_>
Today I went to the bank and did a final ironing(LoL) and I feel content in our..who am I kidding MY new truck :D So I guess I should show you all huh?
It's blue and purdy :D and it's not in to bad of shape for a 10 year old.
Both doors have that slight amount of rust(yep slight, I grew up in michigan remember) and there is a ding or two here and there, but I didn't promise my first born to the bank to pay for it. We got it for a steal too, they had listed it online for the wrong price...but they honored it :)
So yep, tired and happy and ready for one last weekend with my Love before he heads overseas again.