A Fersten First

We named our blog A Fersten First after a family tradition. Growing up, Eric's dad came up with the phrase "A Fersten First" to describe anything that their family did for the first time.

Other than our blog, another recent example is Eric's Masters Degree in Accounting in July 2008. He is the first Fersten to earn a graduate degree. A Fersten First! (Bobbie Jo is a Fersten by marriage, so we are not counting her MSW.)

We are also the first Ferstens to live in Tennessee, or anywhere in The South. Both sides of Eric's family are from New York, and he grew up in Chicago. We feel it is quite obvious to the people here that we are Yankees.

For example, we had never heard the phrase "Git 'er done" until we moved here. We're still not entirely sure what this means or in all contexts it is used.

The Woof II

2009 started off with a bang. Make that crash. Literally.

Eric was driving to work one morning and hydroplaned the CR-V into a utility pole about 200 ft away from the parking garage at his office. We were blessed that he was unhurt and there were no other cars involved. Unfortunately, the CR-V did not emerge from the incident unscathed.



We bought the CR-V in 2006 in LA from a man who lived in India six months of the year. Because of that, it only had 20k miles on it when we bought it even though it was 4 yrs old. We named it The Woof as Eric was working his dog walking business and transported so many dogs back and forth. He had a sticker on the back window from planetdog.com that says "Woof."

We loved that car. It brought us all the way to Nashville packed to the hilt with many of our worldly possessions, and Scrappy and Eliza of course!

Unfortunately, the damage was too extensive for the insurance company, and we were advised last week that the Woof was totaled.

The pole, however, still stands tall!





















We started looking online for a new car last week, and found some great possibilities on craigslist. So on Saturday we drove down to Murfreesboro and purchased the replacement vehicle!

Here are pics of The Woof II! It is a 2005 CR-V and only has 40k on it and is in perfect condition. We love the CR-V! We did take a test drive of a 2007 which was the first model year of the latest redesign. However, we do not like the redesign nearly as much as there is less room in the back and the back windows are a lot smaller. Other than the black interior, which was not Eric's preference, we are very pleased with the car and the price we negotiated. We intend to enjoy The Woof II for years and another 200k miles, bless Honda!




This post courtesy of AAA (our awesome insurance company that gave us full blue book value on The Woof), Metro Nashville Police Department (that didn't issue us a citation for damage to a city light pole), and the folks at Reddell Honda.