Good Morning Chicks and our special Rooster.
DMM great news on your Dad.
Susan and GD good job on the laugh factor. Two thumbs up for both of you.
I almost spit out my coffee when I saw GD calling you Feta Toe Girl.
Oh Susan your stories always make me laugh.
So GD, how many more years with the little kiddos in the house? Better yet, how many more years until you are the proud owner of that Vette?
No much exciting going on over here today. I have to take Gracie to the vet for her shots.
Did I mention it's
Friday! 
Thanks for the compliments!
To answer your question (in a very round-about way)...
Our son is 12 (13 in August), our daughter just turned 8 a couple of weeks ago. If I were irresponsible - I'd go out and buy a 'Vette this morning - screw such things as my family's finances. But alas, I am responsible (most of the time).
We're looking at getting something vehicular in the next year or two. Our Subaru wagon will be paid off in a few months so we'll bank the car payment for a while (it's our only car payment right now)... I can get my speed jollies out in my Trans Am for the foreseeable future. It's more than 6 years old, only got 75k miles on it, and it's in very good shape mechanically. If I get a wild hair and want to boost its power I could add a supercharger or turbo for relatively cheap $$$ ($3k-$7k). But I'm quite happy with it.
In the next year we'll buy something for our longer road trips. Right now we're considering either a van or a larger-sized SUV (not as big as a Hummer, never). I'd prefer a van - I'm just not a large-sized SUV or truck fan. KAMommy's "been-there, done-that" driving a van, so she'd prefer an SUV. We'll work it out (meaning: it'll probably be an SUV) - in any case it'll be a relatively low-mileage vehicle until our son gets to be driving age. Adam has said he'd like a Honda Element as his first car - so that's an option too (it's a bit on the small side for what we're considering). We're going to rent a GMC Acadia for our June trip to Vero Beach (less than 2 months away!) and I've read some good things about them. We may decide on that (or one of it's GM clones).
We also have been talking about company cars for the firm's partners as a 'wish-list' type of thing eventually - that could be in a couple of years or could be never. It's something to consider. So, we plan to use the Subaru as our daily-driver for the next few years, and as it gets to be unreliable or costs too much to maintain we'll shift into using the van or SUV as daily-driver until whenever (unless the company car idea pans out).
Then there's college for the kids...
Optimistically I'm 5 years away from a Corvette, minimum. The only way that would happen is if the company car idea is feasible and that then becomes our daily driver, and college tuition suddenly stops sky-rocketting in general. Probably not gonna happen. Gut feeling - 10-12 years or so. If it's 10 that would be right when Adam finishes college and Katie starts college. If it's 12 that would be when Katie will be starting to help pay her own way through college.
That also gets into KAMommy & my parenting beliefs. Both of us worked through college so that by the time we were each two years into it, we were able to at least help put ourselves through (in conjunction with loans and grants, and in KAMommy's case a scholarship - I was never a good enough student to be considered for a scholarship). I did architectural school with two part-time jobs from early 2nd year until graduation, and maintained an *almost* 3.00 GPA (my graduating GPA was 2.97). I screwed around a lot freshman year - technically I had two of them (the first I refer to as my 'practice freshman year', and the second freshman year I was on academic probation). The truly amazing thing in this case is that I was allowed to stay in school at all - my GPA was as low as 1.3 at one time (the end of winter quarter of my 1st freshman year). This was in 1987 when we each started college - I don't think that would happen now with modern college admissions rules. So I guess I did really well by the end of my college career to bring my GPA up to an *almost* 3.0 (I never did have any 4.0 semesters, but 3.6s & 3.8s semesters were achieveable for me most of the time). I'm gonna brag on KAMommy for a minute - she worked part-time jobs from early freshman year, and graduated with an accounting / business administration bachelor in
3 years, with a
3.96 GPA (Yep, I typed that right).
For our kids - we don't expect them to get a job first thing, freshman year - but by the time they're a late sophomore / early junior year they ought to have enough study habits and the social-life thing figured out enough to be able to work a part-time job. Or maybe they can keep good enough grades for scholarships - hopefully, but we can't count on that.
So yeah, 10-12 years realistically for me and my Corvette - but I'm a very patient man and I can dream in the meantime.
I barely got on cause I couldn't remember my password! Looks like the other computer surfers around here are on My Space. 
I'm the dinosaur in the corner checking my work email and checking on the Chicks and the Rooster.
I'd be there but since I work until 5:30 Pacific time, and the whole 4 hour flight issue, I won't make it in time. Thanks for the invite! 
