New Van!

I'm so excited that we finally bought a new car! It's been a long journey for us, deciding on what we wanted and what was practical. Originally, we both really wanted a Suburban or a Toyota Sequoia....then we saw the price and it was INSANE! We could afford to buy one as long as it was bare bones, no extras.....and I really like those extras! Plus the insurance and gas would cost a lot of money for us too. Even though we live much much closer to Bryan's work and the kids' schools now, we still drive a lot so the gas alone was a huge expense. It took us months to decide that an SUV was not a good choice for our family. It was a hard choice though, considering everyone in my area drives a ginormous, shiney SUV....and here I pull up in my minivan...as Debbie Downer (and Taylor) says...."Wah, Wah, Wah". I had car-envy.....bad. So when our van started leaking at 110K miles, we took that as a sign to hurry up and get a new vehicle!

We had a 2005 Town and Country Minivan. Not the most glamourous of cars but it was great for the 5 of us and it NEVER ever broke down or left me stranded. In the last 5 years all we have replaced was a set of brake pads, a battery and some sort of gasket that was less than $100. I think that's pretty good! That led us to make a practical decision.....another minivan. For about $10,000 less than a bare bones SUV, we bought a brand new 2010 fully loaded Town and Country. I love love love all of the extras! We have all leather, 3 rows of heated seats, automatic doors and trunk, remote start so my car can get nice and cool in the summer before I even set foot inside, camera in the back to help me back up without running into something, automatic seats, touch screen controls, Sirrius Satellite Radio, 2 over head screen dvd players and the front screen in the console can play movies too (if you are in park), wireless headphones for the DVD player, we can download all of our Itunes to the van, it stores up to 300 cd's so we never have to carry another cd again, capability to sync to my cell phone. I just tell it who to call and it calls it for me. Then I hear the voice through the radio speakers. Totally hands-free. The only thing this van didn't have was the GPS....that's ok though because my phone has it. It came down to either a model with GPS and no DVD player or a DVD player and no GPS. The DVD player was a requirement. I was getting tired of our ghetto portable DVD player in our old van. The kids were constantly messing with it and it drove me nuts. In this car, I just pop in the DVD into the front console and it plays on the the over head screens. Kids can't reach them! YAY!

Want to know the best part?? Our car payment actually went DOWN! On our last vehicle, we had to roll in a car we were upside down on so our payment was really high. Our payment on our new car is almost $200 less! Woohoo! I think in a couple of months we will go back and get Bryan a new car too! We're thinking Honda Accord.