Our New Ride

Wednesday, July 6th, we bought a new van! We had been looking for a while, but weren't quite ready to buy. Now that both cars are paid off, Brian really wanted to start looking seriously. We found a few we were interested in online, so we asked my mom to come over and watch the kids so we could check them out. I've been skeptical of buying a used car simply because I want peace of mind that I won't break down on the side of the road and be screwed out of my money. I have to say, knock on wood, that so far we've had a wonderful experience. We found a 2010 that we liked with around 40,000 miles on it, but with no perks. It was a standard van. The guy could tell we were looking for more if possible, so he found us a 2008 Dodge Caravan with a little over 50,000 miles, but all of the perks for the exact same price. It has dual dvd players and a back up camera! That was worth it to us. We ended up trading in the Focus. I bought the Focus, brand new, on July 5th 2003. We traded it in 8 years later on July 6th, 2011 and they gave 25% of what I paid for it. I thought that was pretty good! The van was a leased vehicle and only had one owner. That made me feel better. We were also able to get a bumper to bumper 3 year warranty. Now, if something goes wrong, at least we are covered. We went ahead and bought the vehicle on Wednesday night. I figured we already had mom there to watch the kids. People are always shocked with how good our credit is. I don't know if it is because we look young or the way the economy is, but they kept saying, with your good credit we have a lot of options! We weren't able to pick it up until last night. The vehicle had just been turned in and needed to be detailed and touched up in a few places. We were happy to wait for it to be all clean and full of gas! After dinner last night, we revealed the van to the kids and drove to my parents' house and Allie's to show off. Macie kept saying it was "good". That is her way of saying she really likes something. She even said, "It doesn't have Minnie on the side." Silly girl! So far I'm loving driving it. I'm so excited to finally have a bigger, roomier vehicle!

Macie and Gavin are all of the way in the back. Their bulky car seats take up the whole back seat!

Silver is a popular color in my family! All three girls now drive a silver vehicle. I honestly didn't care about color, I just wanted a good van. The funny thing is, two of my good teacher friends drive silver vans too!

Brian's favorite part! My favorite part is the stow-n-go seating!