Saying Goodbye to the Echo

How sad is it that Adam's one shot of me turned out better than any of the three I took of him?

And how cool is it that there is a reflection of the licence plate on my shirt.
And now, a few words about our dearly departed dark red 2003 4-door manual-transmission Echo. Our first car. It was a lovely little car. It will be missed. It served us so well and I wish we could have kept it. But, alas, it would not hold three car seats and we have only one parking space. It had surprising get-up-and-go and surprisingly abundant cargo space - certainly more cargo space than its successor, our new (to us) Mazda 5, when it's configured to seat 5. It was great on gas, inexpensive to insure, and did not need any repairs in the 4.5 years/35 000 km we used it. Yes, it was overdue for a new battery (causing some inconvenience and concern late in my pregnancy when it wouldn't always hold a charge) and the dealer/wholesaler who bought it will need to do some cosmetic work and repair the radio but otherwise, the Echo was in great shape and had less than 100 000 km on the odometer. By my calculations, the capital cost to us was under $1600/year (not much more than one Metropass subscription!) or just over 20 cents/km. I think that's really good; correct me if I'm wrong. Farewell Echo, I hope your next owner appreciates you!

I got a lot of things done between the time school ended (notably, trading in the Echo) and John was born but one of the things I didn't get to was a photo record of my third-trimester belly, like the ones I posted two years ago. The one above will have to do. It's from 17 hours before John was born, at 38 weeks, 5 days.

Ed Note: I have literally 100's of photos to sort through because I've had lots of photo-taking occasions since June and just got a working computer. Luckily I have a 4 GB flash card for my camera. So, I'll be posting in semi-random order. I'll probably start with the least daunting topics. Patience, please.