celebrating moms and the teen

mother's day was a lovely day. it started and ended with red velvet cupcake bites, ha!

we got to pick up the teen at noon. from there, we decided to hit up the local toyota dealership again, to test drive that prius we're still eyeing (sorry, thatgirl and cagequeen!). while we liked the car itself, we were rather disappointed at the lack of knowledge our salesman seemed to have. as i drove along, i asked him more questions about the car, and decided to test him a little.

me: "so, besides the fact that it's a hybrid, what is it about the prius that screams "buy me over anything else on the market!"?"
dude: "uh, well, it gets good gas mileage."
me: "well, that goes along with the hybrid part. but why should i buy a prius, and not, say, a honda or a volkswagen?"
dude: "um, well, it's a good car."

oy vey. suffice it to say, we won't be buying a car from that nimrod.

next, we decided to find the nearest volkswagen dealer to test out the passat and the tiguan. but v-dub dealers are few and far between around here, so we ended up driving all the way out to pasadena. and while we could see several salespeople milling about, chatting on cell phones, no one approached us as the teen and i sashayed through the lot, looking at the different cars for sale.

WTF? even when it's not recession time, anytime we set foot on a car lot, we're usually jumped on by a salesperson as soon as we get there. do these people not want to sell cars??

finally, the hub and the bean came up behind us with a salesman in tow. we told him that we wanted to test drive, handed him my driver's license, and a few minutes later i was pulling a cute little silver tiguan out onto the street.

i liked the car. a lot. it was super cute, drove really nicely, was nice and roomy, and not too badly priced - at least, the MSRP was reasonable. but when we got back to the lot and the salesdude disappeared to find a key to test drive a passat, the hub came out of the showroom and said "let's get outta here. these guys are ridiculous."

i told the salesdude that we had to bounce, and when we got back in the car, the hub explained that he'd taken the bean inside to cool off and look at other cars in there. he'd caught the attention of the sales manager, and when he questioned him about the markup posted on every vehicle on the lot, the guy decided to be a complete and total asshole about it.

you know, when you're a salesperson - in a recession, no less - and you've got a potential customer standing in front of you asking legitimate questions, you've basically got two choices. you can be cordial and helpful, which would lead to a possible sale, or you can be a dickhead - with an obvious conclusion. you can guess which road that dude chose. oh, well.

we headed home to relax for a bit before going over to the hub's grandparents' for our mother's day/teen's birthday gathering. everyone was already there, just chillin' and chatting. the teen picked up the camera to capture some awesome shots of the bean.

i got the hub to take a few of us girls, too.

the bean was bugged by the sun in her face.

so we started tickling her.

i've had this tie chair sitting around for months - it's a little contraption that basically turns any chair into a high chair for toddlers. whenever we go to the grandparents', we end up using cloth napkins to tie the bean into a chair at the dining table, and i lament the fact that i've, yet again, forgotten to bring this thing. well, i finally remembered it.

it worked like a charm. moms, i highly recommend it.

the bean had her very own set of silverware, which she used happily on her little pieces of chicken, steak, and shrimp.

MIL remembered the teen's no-meat stance and set this next to the salad instead of pouring it in.

and then it was dessert time. the teen put her brave face on and smiled through her embarrassment as we all sang "happy birthday" to her, and then she blew out the candles and cut the cake.

there were cards for her to open, but like her mother, she really dreads opening gifts in front of people.

in addition to the cake, we had, of course, cupcake bites and ice cream - plus these yummy mini lemon cakes.

the bean really likes ice cream.

she also seems to think it makes a fine facial moisturizer.

before we left, i managed to get a decent shot of the bean with her great-great-grandma. there are five generations between these two.

and that was it! a happy mother's day, indeed.