What a Saturday

Ever since we got here, all of our Saturdays have become "get stuff done that we can't do without two adults" day. Man would really like Saturdays to become "let's to nothing at all today b/c even on Sunday we have responsibilities" day. Every weekend we kind of collapse at the end and tell ourselves that we won't make any plans for the following weekend. Just a park, or the beach, maybe a quick shopping trip for provisions for the coming week if I don't manage to get out and do it with three kids in tow.

Yesterday we got a fairly late start since I'm just so tired lately. I managed to make a nice big pancake breakfast with bacon which roused Man out of bed (I love waking people up with good food smells) and we all sort of puttered around trying to get ready to go on our various errands. Man cleaned out the little car from his ruck march (tons of equipment to haul back into the house) while I got kids dressed. We parted ways, me taking the kids up to a post-wide yard sale (it's like a HUGE flea market! pretty cool idea since we aren't allowed to have sales by our homes) and Man went to get his car washed to support the Army carwash, clean out our old Sable, and test drive a few vehicles. Tag found all sorts of toys he wanted to bring home with him but the only purchase we made was a new bedspread for Princess. Her old one is looking really worn and limp nowadays from so much use.

Man called to talk about a couple of finds, a Honda Odessy (my dream van) which was going for $17,000 and the dealer said he could take some off for us, seeing as we needed a van so badly. I don't remember the details, but it had many more miles than the Kia Sedona Man found just a bit later. He had been feeling like he needed to stop at a tiny little used car lot that he passes every day on the way to work. When we got there I was surprised to see all sorts of classic cars. There were amazing old Porches, BMW's, and in the office were a couple of fantastically preserved old cars that had big signs on them that said "please don't touch". Inexplicably, they had a minivan on the lot as well. It was the sore thumb of the lot, I tell you. It's a 2003 with 93,000 miles, but still runs like a dream. I'm going to take it to a mechanic next week, hopefully tomorrow. It has all sort of extra features, including a rear windshield wiper, moon roof, two sliding doors, and bells and whistles like I never thought we'd have in a vehicle, like front and rear climate control. We found an ad for it that was $1,000 less than what it was listed for on the lot which the salesman will honor. It's well below bluebook and we feel really good about it. It's a small enough sum that we can pay a chunk out of pocket and get a very small loan with the shortest life on it and still have a very small car payment. We put a small earnest on the van to hold it.

It's so strange to be making a decision like this! It's the most money Man and I have spent together all at once and I'm surprised at how easy it was to talk to him about it and make decisions.

Our first van!!! For the love of Pete.