A Dreamy Birthday, Part I

Recently, Matthew had a birthday!  It was on a Friday, so he took the day off and we made a whole weekend out of it!  Unfortunately I had to work, so Matthew filled his day doing other things...a hike with his good friend Tim at Torrey Pines Reserve (beautiful!), a midday appointment with the DMV to renew his license, and then off to support his good friend Marc in buying a new car (GREAT story there, but I'll let Matthew, or maybe Marc, tell that one).

Then the "Birthday Boy" came home to his first birthday gift of the weekend:

"Happy Birthday!  This Maverick REV-6 is for you.  I've got one too.  As of this moment, consider yourself UNDER ATTACK!  Love, Me :)

We had a fun game shooting Nerf darts at each other...well, mostly Matthew shooting them at me (he IS an experienced shooter ya know!) before a quiet, relaxing evening with the puppy.

Matthew received many birthday gifts throughout the weekend...However, God had a much bigger and better gift on its way that only HE knew about and could deliver...

But First, Let's Step Back a Week

For YEARS, Matthew has been dreaming of one day owning a BMW M3.  For the last couple of months, he's finally been looking for one.  He originally thought he'd own an E46 model (the 2001-2006 version), but after viewing this video...

...he started thinking that perhaps this newer model (an E90) was worth a test drive.  How could he not after that review?!  (If you skipped it, it's worth a watch...some later references will make more sense if you've seen this video.  So get with the program, and watch the video...it's quite entertaining!)

The weekend before his birthday, he found a white one at CarMax.  White is a very safe color for Matthew because he HATES white cars (he owned one once and says he's never gotten so many tickets...of course the car was also a Nissan 240Z), so there was no chance he'd want to buy it.  As he put it, he just wanted "to sit in it."  "Hmm, okay, let's go," I said...seeing no real harm in sitting in it...

Of course, if you know Matthew, after sitting in this E90 coupe (and checking out the engine), he wanted to take it out for a spin...so we did.

All I can say is...wow.  This car definitely had a lot of grunt, and as Matthew said later, it was a LOT of car.  It wasn't very impressive: rough sounding, not super comfortable to ride in, and the thing was a BEAST!  (We figured out later that this car must have had the competition package, kinda like putting more "bite" in your tiger...Have you watched that video up there?  If not, go watch it; there's a reference here.)

Just for kicks, I asked the salesman if they had any sedans (like the one in the review video).  He found one in Ontario and arranged for it to be transferred down here for us.  We didn't bother checking out the specs; we just wanted to see it to be able to compare the two types.  We just knew it was a "black" E90 M3 sedan.

Birthday Test Drive

Later in the week, Matthew got a call that the sedan had arrived, so on his birthday weekend, we went back up there.  Matthew thought it would be fun to be able to drive an M3 for his birthday, and he was pretty excited about it.  We spotted this "black" car from the parking lot...but a funny thing happened as we got closer...the car turned BLUE!  "Uhhh...this could be a problem," Matthew said as we stared at this sparkling midnight blue beauty.  The sales manager came by and gave us the key so we could sit in and check it out while we waited for the salesman to arrive.

Here's a short video as we waited for the salesman:

As we got into the car and took a look around, we both kept saying "Wow!" As it turns out, not only was this car beautiful on the outside, it had EVERYTHING!  Matthew said it a few more times:  "This could be a problem."  In fact he told me "DO NOT let me buy this car today!"

Needless to say, we didn't escape before the salesman could get to us.  Here's some footage of the test drive:

Yeah, we both loved that car...and we were even given a chance to sleep on it.  Matthew didn't have his license extension on him (which meant he legally couldn't buy the car), and we had to head home to get ready for his Birthday BBQ.  So, the guys at CarMax agreed to hold the car for him one more day...giving him plenty of time to think about it...and simply walk away if he so desired...

The BBQ was fun:  just a few close friends and very laid back...and we even had cake!

Matthew eyeballing his birthday cheesecake

Stay tuned for Part II...