Oh the sad sorry thing we call "van"

Those avid readers of this blog will remember that a few weeks ago, while in Cali, Wes did a good job of junking out my van. Well, I didn't want to plaster his van whoops all over this blog and not even mention my own, more recent whoops...So, here it is. For those that have not been to our place, this is where I have to park my van everyday:

Now, I was not fond of this spot, as I am notoriously a horrible parker. I swore that I would never park the van there the whole year we lived here! But, within the first month or so, I practiced and practiced getting into our spot without hitting any of the obstacles around (other cars, poles, garages...). It is a ridiculously small parking lot. But I finally got good at it. Too good in fact. I was better at parking there then Wes was after a while. That's where the big problems came in. I got comfortable, nay cocky about my excellent parking, and because of my cockiness and my hurry to park the other day, this is what the side of my van looks like now:Good thing it's a very sturdy pole, huh?!You should have seen poor Armour when I hit it. He was sitting in the seat right by the door (no worries-there isn't even any denting-just scratches and paint transfer, so he was unscathed). But he was a bit surprised at the knock and the loud noise! The other two were like, "Oh, mommy! I knew you should have let dad do that." Isn't it the worst when your kids think you can't do something well, and you prove them right over and over?! CRAZY!!!

My van

So, in case anyone wanted to check out the damage to the van, here are a few pics. It is not easy to really capture it in photos, but here is the best I could do. Picture 1 is the dent on the back, 2 and 3 are pictures of the wheel well that broke out in pieces when the tire blew out! I wish I had had the presence of mind to take pictures of the blown out tire when it happened, but sadly, I didn't. If you missed the blogs on this, see here for info on the dent, and here for info on the wheel well/gas cap thing.

You can see my hand where there should be a plastic piece holding the gas thing more securely in there.
This is what the gas cap looks like-in case you cannot tell, it is in 2 pieces-one is in the gas tank thing still, the other is in my hand...