The van

*Disclaimer.  This is long.  Probably won't have pictures tonight, and probably boring.  However, this is the record of my family's life, so it's in here.  That's also why I'm including prices in here.  One day my kids or even grandkids will be amazed that someone could buy a car for $1,000.  By then, that's probably what it will cost to fill up their tank!

With baby three on the way, we knew that we'd need a larger vehicle.  Hyrum isn't out of his giant car seat yet (maybe at the end of the this year -if he gains some weight) and between his and Kate's chair -there's about 3 inches of room in the back seat.  Funny, for all the research I did on car seats, it never occurred to me to try and find ones that were a bit more narrow.  My kids are practically sitting in thrones in the car.

Either way... a Honda Civic cannot fit three car seats.

First we had to decide which car to sell.  I know that this might seem like a no-brainer, since one is 20 years old and the other is only 9 years old.  But, it wasn't.  Justin will be deployed for half the year in 2013, so we won't even need a second car (even less than we do now) so we did entertain the thought of selling the Honda, getting more money out of it, and he'd just stick with the Subaru on the rare occasions he goes any where besides the airport.

In the end, we said good-bye to my faithful little Subaru.  I bought it (my mom actually bought it and I made payments during school and afterwards) the summer after I came home from my mission (for $3,300).  It was already 11 years old but only had 80,000 miles on it -very low.  And in Subaru years... that was probably closer to 30,000 or something.  It was a great car!  I had to get a new alternator and starter (only a few months before I met Justin and we bought an alternator and starter shop), something with my speedometer cable went out once, and new tires twice (only paid once, because they were 100,000 warranty tires and they hadn't hit that mileage when they wore out) and probably new brakes.  That's it.  It did have a small oil leak that was fixed a couple of times by Justin's dad, but it never quite quit leaking oil just a little.  I think it had about 173,000 miles on it when we sold it for $1,000.  Lucky for me, it went to a good home and I'll be able to visit if I need to.  Hopefully the 16 year old twins that are driving it soon will love it as much as I did!

Oh, I need to back up just a moment.  When we decided to sell it, I told Justin I didn't want anything to do with it.  I'm a horrible negotiator, I don't like talking on the phone, and I didn't want all the hassle of selling the car on KSL since he is out of town so often.  We had the car detailed on Monday afternoon and his uncle, Jeff, picked it up for us.  He was going to list it, talk to everyone, test drive it, etc, and we were going to give him 10% of whatever we got out of it.

For sentimental reasons (not for selling purposes) I posted on Facebook that we had the Subaru cleaned so we could sell it.  I mentioned it was an old car, but if anyone was interested, let me know.  Not thinking anyone would ever comment on buying it.

That evening two people did.  I told both of them the details and price and then gave them Jeff's information if they were really interested.  The next day my friend Kathy's sister, Betsy and her husband called, test drove, and bought it.  So technically, I sold the car -or at least found a buyer.  Jeff still handled the other stuff.

We were a one car family, which didn't matter much since Justin was in Washington DC, but I knew eventually he'd be coming home.

We'd been looking online for vans, even went and looked at one on a lot.  We knew our price range and had decided on a specific make and model.  We were paying cash and didn't want to deplete our savings, but were hoping to get a reliable van with enough life left in it that it would last us the next few years without any major problems.

Most of the van's with that criteria were all priced about the same, and had about the same miles, except for one I noticed online.  It was a private seller, asking $5,000 for an All Wheel Drive and super up-graded (all the bells and whistles, like heated seats and automatically opening doors) Chrysler Town and Country that had at least 30,000-40,000 fewer miles than anyone else was listing.  We didn't care at all about all the extras, in fact, sometimes when those electrical things start to go it can be a real headache, but the low miles and all wheel drive caught my attention.

It had only been listed 2 days, so despite not wanting to make any phone calls or test drives and get too involved in the process I told Justin I would at least call and see if it was still for sell.  It was, and I asked if I could test drive it and take it to our mechanic the next day.  I did just that, and on the way over to Henstrom, I was hoping that Jeff would think the engine was in good condition, because I was really liking the thing.  I'm sure I'm wrong, but I think the last van I drove could have been the one we had growing up.  An old (even when we had it) Plymouth Voyager that drove nothing like this one.

Justin and I joke because neither one of us NEED a new car, and aren't willing to get into debt over having  nicer cars with fancy rims or a subwoofer in the trunk.  Our wish list has always consisted of 1-power locks (that's mine, with kids in your arms, it would sure be nice to have the doors unlock for you) and 2-cruise control (that's Justins, probably since he does all the long distance driving and his car didn't have it).  That's it.  Not hard to accommodate.

Anyway, to cut a long story slightly shorter, Jeff thought it looked great.  He's a big fan of the Chrysler Town and Country's anyway, and this one seemed to be running well, below the amount of miles that a lot of the vans start needing serious repairs (it has 110,000 miles) and was fairly priced.  He actually didn't like the fact that it was an all wheel drive vehicle, just because they have more things that can go wrong and can be more expensive to fix, but I suppose there's always a trade-off, and I feel better about it being a little safer.  I worried about being able to reach the back seat (where at least one kid will end up after the baby get's here) but I figured that we'd just take out one of the captains chairs in the middle and put the older kids both in the back.

 So, with a slight headache about where to meet and having to go through the drive up window twice (the credit union where we met and got the cashiers check from neglected to mention their Saturday hours did not include the lobby), we drove away with the title and two sets of keys.  I took it and did the Safety and Emissions and the kids and I will brave the DMV on Monday to register it.

That's it.  We're a van family.  I've heard there's no turning back now.