New Van

Jeff has been driving our truck to work for 3 years now. While it is sound mechanically, it has no air conditioning. It averages about 95 degrees here in the summer so it is pretty miserable for Jeff to drive to work and back in that heat. Especially since in the summer he is outside in the heat for several hours and then to get in and drive with no relief! When it is hot it makes you sleepy too, so it wasn't the safest for him to be driving over an hour a day without a/c.

Financially it would have been nice to wait one or two more years to buy a different vehicle, but we decided it was time for Jeff to not have to drive without a/c anymore. Even though we don't have a 3rd child yet, we hate buying cars so we decided it would be best to just get a van since we would probably be having another child in the next few years. We have heard people say they could get 300000 to 500000 miles out of their hondas so that would be great if we could get at least 10 years out of it, if more than great!

We have been looking for several months. The first few months we started looking at cars, but then we decided that a van would be more practical for us. We kept finding cars or vans we would like, but then they would either sell and be gone, or we would go look at them and they would have problems. We found this one for a great deal. It was the least expensive van we could find with this low of miles in any brand. The fact that it was a Honda was a big bonus. It is a 2008 with only 23,000 miles on it. We had it checked out by a mechanic for 3-4 hours which cost like $100 but it was worth it for us since we have bought vehicles before that turned out to not be as great as we thought. We also had it looked at by a body shop and they both reported that it is a safe vehicle with no major problems that we should be concerned about. It was in a minor accident where the right side was damaged, so the window makes a little sound when you go over 60 miles an hour, but we are actually kind of glad about that because that helped us get it for a great price.

I seriously HATE car shopping more than anything and I always feel sick to my stomach when going through the process and after we buy it I always am so worried that it will be a good decision. We are just praying that we made the right choice and that this will be a good vehicle for our growing family. I love driving it, I feel so much safer than in the car. The girls love all the space too. It doesn't have a dvd player, but we will probably eventually just get ones that strap to the back of the seat or make em tough it out like the good old days:)

It feels great to have two reliable cars, with air conditioning, that fit our entire family!

Say a prayer for us that it will last us a long long time!