We Bought A Minivan

"Here babe, take my picture."

"Is this going in a blog post?"

"Of course."

Yep, this happened.  Funny thing about us and buying cars.  It seems when we begin to "do homework" about a certain type of car or start to "just look around to see what's out there"...we end up with a new car within about ten days...  It happened with our swagger wagon and it happened last week.  I guess we Trent is just that good at finding deals that would be stupid to pass up.   And that is what this one was.  We were starting to tip into the Time-For-A-Bigger-Car-For-Mama zone but were hung up on adding another car payment (translation: we couldn't).   Then we found a 2006 Honda Odyssey in great shape, with stellar carfax, for $4K less than the Kelly Blue Book value, for which we could pay cash after trade in and...yeah...here we are.   Turns out buying a car when financing is not involved is sooooo muuuuuch faaaaasterrrrr.  You just write a check, hand over your trade in's keys and drive away in your new ride.  There were abundant high fives over the fact that we didn't incur more debt and a few "WE WIN AT LIFE!" texts were sent to our Dave Ramsey Financial Peace teacher.

I am one of those stories.  You know, about the mom who gives up her sporty pre-children car for some terribly unsexy but also terribly practical family car, while the husband promises her that "one day" she'll once again have a sporty little car of her choosing?   Yeah, that story.

I cried when I drove away from my little red Volvo.

I cried some more later that day because, well, minivan haters gonna hate, which didn't help my psychological turmoil.  It's not so much the acquisition of a minivan that got to me.  I'm fine with the van, it was a super deal and it was the right choice for our family.  I was even stoked to remove a bunch of post-100K miles Volvo related problems from our to-do list and expense list upon trade in (I got 99 problems but a Volvo ain't one).  Oh and I was ecstatic about all the space I had just gained.  Apparently cars physically shrink when you suddenly acquire two children.

No, what got to me more was that in handing over my little red car I was essentially saying goodbye to a stage of my life, a really, really great one.  Blah blah about a new chapter of life, yeah yeah.  I'm a different person now and a good one, exactly where I should be, including the driver's seat of a minivan that is paid for free and clear.  I'm not the 21 year old newlywed whose criteria for car buying were "it is red" and "it is cute".  Who cared that it was expensive to buy, expensive to fix, we had no down payment, no trade in and no credit?  Not me.  It was a foolish car. But it was good to me.  And dang, it was cute.

So, we've got a station wagon and a minivan.  Y'all better WATCH OUT because we are waaaaaaaaay too cool for school now.  Holla.

Peace out.