Those two words strike stress and fear into the heart of my husband! He is not fond of the whole figuring out what kind of car to buy, and he is even more annoyed by the whole "looking/shopping" experience. Here is what February and March were like......this is looking like a long post, feel free to grab a snack ;-)
We started looking for a "new" van around the end of January. We started praying for guidance in our search, plus we would drive around car lots, check out the paper and look on the Internet. T was actually hoping to get a whole extra year out of our car...but anyway, that is a whole different story. In one of our many travels out and about, we did find a couple we wanted to look at. Of course the ones we found either had too many miles on them or they were WAY too much money.
At the first dealer we stopped, the salesman seemed very helpful. He gave us the info we wanted and mentioned that he would be getting some vans in on Friday. OK, T told him to call him and we would go from there. Fast forward a week or so, T & I went out for lunch one day and stopped to look at the van. It was very nice and it had all the things we wanted. But knowing the fine art of "dealing", we thanked him and left. We did some background work on the van and some comparison pricing and decided we would go back and test drive it with the children. Long story short, we had all but put a deposit down, when the salesman came back and said we would need to "give" him a little more. T had signed the paper saying we would purchase the said van for the said amount on this day. T was very upset, as was I. Needless to say, we did not purchase that van. However, being the "nice" guy that the salesman was, he called back to say he had a different van he wanted to show us! NOT!
We went away after that, so van shopping was put on hold for a week or so.
We called the guy (same dealer ownership-just different makes) who sold us our last van to see if he could do anything to help us in our search and he told us he would help anyway he could. Fast-forward a week and he said he could get a van over to their dealership and we could look at it. The day of our appointment comes and guess what...yup, they sold that van as well. Okay, we are still doing fine. We believe that when we find a vehicle, if we are meant to purchase it, everything will work out. 2 almost new vans...we stop and listen to what God is trying to tell us.
The next week, we find a couple of more on the Internet and go look at those. We go to one place, and they can't find the van we want to look at. We go to the other and T is thinking it has too many miles. While we are there, we look at a different one, but it is dark out and you really can't check out a car in the dark. We decided to go back on Friday to check it out during the day. T seemed happy with that van, not too much mileage...just a little high in the asking price. We did find a few things we thought should be taken care of on it: a few scratches, dents, that sort of thing. Car guy says great, we will have our people look at it on Monday to take care of those issues. Tom called and found out ..... wait for it....yup, they sold it!
More prayer, lots more prayer, and no car shopping. We just couldn't take anymore right then. I went away with Mommy for the weekend (and wouldn't you know vans like we wanted were everywhere)and T spent time working on the addition. We really needed that break.
Last Sunday while reading the paper, I just happen to look at the car ads. I know, why do I do this to myself. T listen to what I found and we let it go. On Monday, I did some research, met him for lunch, made a list of pros/cons and decided OK, we would go and look Tuesday night. Tuesday came and T was out of town for work, he called to let me know he would be late getting home. I start thinking- this mean we won't be looking tonight, will he want to stay home(I am a planner if you hadn't figured that out yet). He gets home and says, are you ready? Let's go! OK, fine by me. We stopped and grabbed some dinner for the children, you never know if this car stop will be a long one or a short one. We drove through the lot to see the van advertised, and found one the same price that had more of what we wanted. T went in and found a salesman so we could test drive it and check it all out. It was very nice and everyone seemed to like it. With 2 teenagers with long legs and 2 younger children, everyone has to like it! We sat with the salesman and T did his thing ( I get to sit and listen/watch), the car guy did his. We filled out paperwork, talked with the account manager, who set everything up to have the car ready for us on Thursday, decided we would talk with our credit union and left. No money was put down, no guarantee as to whether or not we would get the loan, nothing and yet it was assumed the car was ours and we would be picking it up at 5pm Thursday. T talked with the bank, insurance company, and the salesman Wednesday and it looked like everything was a go. Thursday came and T had meetings all day and he was still trying to finalize things with the bank. It was 11:30 am before we knew anything concrete and he wanted to know if I was excited yet. I told him, I would be excited when I was in the new van, with the keys, driving away from the dealer.
We signed paperwork at the bank, drove home to pick up the keys for the old car, and headed to the dealer.
Drum roll, please.........................
our old car
our new car
Praise the Lord! He worked all things out for His honor and His glory! Thank you, Lord! Today marks the one week anniversary of our new car!!! YAY!
I wasn't going to blog about this, but the children kept asking me about it. So, here it is!
Happy Monday!
My new key!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Let's see what we can do about that! 
As you can see, the rabbits were a little hungry this winter and did some nibbling on my burning bushes. I sure hope they are going to be all right. 
Although things haven't changed that much, we have lost our warm weather (it is only 28 degrees today) you can still see the progress of the bulbs. Maybe next week we will have some color!
n: 
This next one is taken at the end of my folding counter.
