The plan has been, all along, to get a VAN before the new baby came. And then everything with our Texas house imploded, and our tax return got delayed (can you believe the IRS doesn't have record that we paid back our $8000 owed first-time-home-buyers-credit last year?!!!), and we couldn't qualify for any type of credit, and...and...and. You know the drill--it feels like the whole world is combined against you.
I finally reached a Zen state about the fact that we weren't going to get the 'dream van'--some beautiful 2011 Honda Odyssey or Toyota Sienna....but I struggled with the idea of squeezing 3 kids into a tiny car (seriously...how posh does a car seat REALLY have to be? Those things are huge!). A tiny car, which, by the way, broke down every other day--it seemed--and just recently, on top of not having heat, stopped sending the exhaust fumes OUTSIDE of the car and started piping them INTO the car. As well as not starting most times, stalling whenever stopped, and always have warning lights and junk on. Needless to say--one way or the other we needed a new vehicle~!
So, my sweet husband, who loves me, figured out a way to come up with exactly $5340 to spend on a van...a combination of sexy moves like taking a loan out on our 401K (which Chase is going to seize if we didn't have some sort of hold on it) and combining our tax return, and any available cash we had sitting around randomly. The search began!!
And junk showed up! Do you have any idea what kind of van can be purchased for $5340? Not much, I'll tell you. A depressing 3 week search turned up nothing, and I spent the afternoon in tears. Weren't we trying? Didn't we pay our tithing? Wasn't this a good desire of my heart? What else might I need to learn from this situation (so I could hurry up and learn it and move on!)
Well, Mike headed out solo on Friday to look at one more vehicle. He took it on a test drive, drove it home to me and said..."This is the best one we've seen yet. I'm going to go buy it!" One hour later I was piling our kids into our very broken, tiny, smelly vehicle for the last time! I drove to meet Mike at the dealership and signed some papers and wha-la! We were van owners! I can't believe our good fortune and HUGE blessing...
It's a 2003 Dodge Caravan, Sport Edition (which, near as we can tell, just means our display features look snazzy). 115,000 miles with 2 previous owners. We were looking for something that would simply buy us 50,000 miles of driving comfort, as we anticipate being in a whole different financial place come 3-5 years. The prideful part of me LOVES the fact that it looks nice! Inside and out!! We were close to buying a really sexy looking gold beauty, with the paneling falling off in the inside, so to have a nice, clean, sharp looking van seems too good to be true. Bucket seats for the kids, which wasn't my first choice, but Katelyn has named the van Penelope and tells us that "it's AWESOME!"
So if you'd like to see a pregnant lady do a little jig, come on over to my house when I buckle the kids in their car seats. Watch me beam with joy when the heat comes on--and actually works--and see me get giddy at the idea that the radio works....all the stations, all the CD's, all sorts of sound. Driving in our family vehicle is not longer accompanied by Katelyn saying, "Mom, what is the smell" and me thinking--am I killing my children with this exhaust smell? It starts when it's supposed to, keeps running at stop lights, and doesn't have to be flipped into neutral when sitting in traffic. Oh, and did I mention how easy it is to get the kids in and out? And have extra passenger and cargo space?
I have recently heard several times, "Well, I'm just not a van person." I'm not sure what that means--but, even if it conjures up some image of a frumpy, curler and robe dressed mom with soccer balls flying out of the door, and 17 screaming children driving down the freeway....sign me up!
I AM a van person! :)
