Valentine's Day Surprise

Yesterday Jason and I traded in my car for a minivan.

We totally weren't planning on doing that this soon, but the opportunity presented itself and we jumped at the opportunity. My mom called yesterday morning to tell me that one of the car dealerships here in town was offering some special incentives due to the holiday weekend. I was hesitant at first because Jason and I had hurt our credit a little in the past while I was still in school living off of student loans and having to pay for daycare on top of that.

There was a time soon after Audrey was born that we had only one car. Looking back to those days, I sometimes wonder how we were able to make it work. We managed to survive with one car for almost a whole year until I got my current teaching job. That is when we knew that we needed to find a way to get another car without being slammed with an insane interest rate due to our bad credit.

God blessed us with some unexpected inheritance money which Jason's mom was generous to surprise us with. Jason's aunt Karen was also visiting us from California at that time, and she was also very generous to help us with a down payment for our car. We weren't looking for much at the time. We just wanted something to get me to work each day, but something reliable. We ended up with a little Chevrolet Aveo. It looked just like this:

It was a pretty small car, but it did the job. It was a great little car that suited me just fine. That was a great little car. It kinda reminded me of my first car: a 1985 Toyota Corolla hatchback. Our main problem with this car was that we found we were often needing more space than we had, and Jason's little Saturn wasn't offering much more space either. Our funniest experience was when we bought an over-the-stove microwave for our kitchen. In order to get it in my car, the microwave was in the front seat with the seat pushed as far back as it would go (I still don't know how I was able to shift with that box in the way), and Jason was practically sitting on the laps of our girls while they were cramped in their car seats!

Getting a bigger car has been something we had been talking about for quite some time, and I still don't think we aren't done having kids. I couldn't tell you when #3 might be coming, but we definitely didn't want to be putting one of the kids in the trunk just so the baby could have space in the back seat!

Our car buying experience yesterday was almost surreal. We were unsure of how things would go as we had the girls with us, and we didn't know how long they would be okay looking at cars. We were soon greeted by a salesperson who was the most laid-back, no-hassle kind of guy who listened to us so intently it was almost like he already knew EXACTLY what we wanted and needed. If you ask me, God had a hand in this one!

We drove one minivan which was along the lines of what we were looking for, but our salesperson told us to drive the car to one of their other lots because he thought we would like this other one better. He was so right! I drove up to the other car and immediately thought, "This is it!" After only a few seconds in that car, we knew it was the one for us. The girls were even excited too. I think they like being able to see more out their windows.

We like how the back seats fold down and the middle row comes out if we need all the space. We like that it feels safer and that the girls' car seats lock in there MUCH more tightly than they ever did before. Hopefully we won't be needing another car for quite some time. I know that I wasn't originally thrilled about the idea of being a minivan driving soccer mom, but it's not the car that defines me. What other options do I have if I end up having more kids? None. I'm happy with my new car. When does soccer practice start?