Out with the old, in with the new

I finally got a new car!  Well, not finally.  Yes, finally.  I purchased a brand new 2004 Toyota Sienna in May of 2004, right after my father died (inheritance money).  It took us to Montana and back, Seattle to Montana, South Dakota to Montana, Wyoming to Montana, Chicago and back and Pennsylvania and back, and many other places in between.  It 's been a great car!  (Even better that I didn't have payments!)  But these last months has not been it's best.  The deal breaker was that the sliding door on the passenger side stopped working.  It would open, but wouldn't close.  At least not without help.  And it got harder and harder to help the more we opened it.  So, we just stopped using that door.  It took a while, but the kids got used to it.  However, with school starting and my picking up the kids, we were causing a problem since they couldn't get into the car on the side closest to the sidewalk.  Bummer, huh.  It was definitely frustrating to not be able to get in and out how they wanted to, I admit.  But I could live with it.  But now with school it became a bigger issue.  Also since we are carpooling with 2 other neighborhood kids.  (And the car had over 117,000 miles on it!)  So it was time to get a new one.

We started looking back in June before we went on vacation.  I had just gotten an estimate of what it would cost to the get door fixed.  $1600!  Just for the door!  I wasn't willing to put that kind of money into this car.  Not for that at its age.  We started looking at SUVs but quickly discovered that, unless I wanted to drive a tank everyday, there wasn't as much room as the van.  Reluctantly, I decided to get a van instead.

We found one on Saturday that we liked but couldn't get the number we wanted so we walked away.  We found another a few days later with more features, but not quite as nice of a van, but it was less expensive.  I went back and forth trying to decide which one.  I really tried to like the less expensive one more (VW Routan, white with tan leather interior, navigation, dual dvd screens, sunroof).  But the Honda just had more of the little things that I look for in a car.  (adjustable middle seats, manual stowing of the back row, etc.)  So we were at the Honda dealership until almost 10pm last night signing papers and stuff.  I forgot how annoying buying a car can be.  Financially painful as well.  Our first car payment in over 10 years!  Ouch.  But my new job will more than pay for it, so that helps a lot.

I drove the kids to school and picked them up in it today.  It was nice.  (However, I was in the elementary school line behind a black Sienna, and another black Honda.  Behind me was another black Sienna and another black Honda behind that.  Almost like a celebrity caravan.)  The kids need to learn how to move the middle row of seats to get tot he back (It seats 8) but that's about it.  I spent some of the day programming the radio stations, reading the manual and finding out what it can do.  I'm very excited about driving it.