"Mom. This car is too fancy for us."

That's what my somber and almost tearful 8-year-old son said to me the first time he sat in the BEAUTIFUL, 2012 Honda Odyssey we bought last month.

He felt the same way I did.  It just didn't feel like "us" and it was not at all what we were used to.  We were used to affordable and paid for.  Well-worn.  Modest.  Simple.  Which translated to stinky, uncomfortable, crowded and putting up with many things broken in our beloved 1999 Honda Passport with 210,000 miles on it that I've been driving for 10 years.

  

 Regardless, Hunter was upset and nearly crying over his first encounter with our new, luxurious mini van.  He missed the dilapidated and familiar.  Ha!

And for whatever reason, he thought this car was too fancy for us.
(Clearly, Levi didn't though)

My wonderful provider of a husband knew that it's been a life-long dream of mine to own a mini-van.  Yes.  You read that right.  Owning a minivan has made a childhood dream of mine come true.  I dreamt big, baby!  To me a mini-van has always meant lots of friends headed to fun places together in the same car.  It meant practicality for hauling large loads. And after I became a mom it meant no more passenger doors at risk of cracking into the car parked next to us in parking lots.  And no more accidentally slamming fingers into closing doors, because all new mini-vans have power, safety doors.  Yaay!

And despite the fact that my hubs had made my dream come true, I must admit that I went through a kind of identity crisis from the moment I began driving this little slice of heaven on earth.

While it was beautiful and comfortable and convenient and spacious and everything worked perfectly, I had a hard time reconciling the luxury with all of those car payments that we haven't had to worry about in nearly a decade.  And it was just as Hunter had said...it seemed WAAY too fancy for me.  

 It did, however, seem God-ordained that we found this particular mini-van.  We had been praying about finding one for several months before we patiently waited for the end of the year to buy.  While Josh spent ample time perusing the stock of every dealership carrying used Honda Odysseys and Toyota Siennas within a 150-mile-radius of our house or so,  I watched our local Craigslist like a hawk.  I was so thrilled to come across this van and the sweet family who sold it to us from Tampa.   While the van had 44,000 miles on it when we purchased it, we found out the the miles were from a 2-hour round trip the family made to their church twice a week.  Surely 44,000 spiritually-inspired- church-miles can't take that much of a toll on the overall life of a vehicle, right?   

 

We drove up to Tampa and the man who sold it to us met us at a Honda dealership so we could have it inspected.   Once we got the word that it was in impeccable condition, we headed to the bank with the seller.  While we waited at the dealership and at the bank (it ended up taking waaay longer at the bank than we bargained for as it was a Friday near closing and they weren't ready to handle all the paperwork despite what we were told over the phone) we had the opportunity to learn more about him and his sweet family and later met his wife when she came to pick him up.   We talked about homeschooling and parenting and Biblical truth and the fact that they had 6 children with 2 out on their own and were ready to move on to a smaller and more economical vehicle.  I have to say that they were quite Duggar-esque and we absolutely loved getting to know them.  They left a selection of awesome, instrumental hymns on the data storage of the sound system in the van and also a photo of their whole family on the wallpaper of the data screen for us to remember them by.  :)   It was so cool to have God orchestrate it so that our van buying experience was such an encouraging spiritual experience.

As luck would have it, within two weeks of buying our van, my dad's Ford work van of 15 plus years took a nose dive.  The transmission went completely out on his vehicle, so we were happy to let my dad have our old Passport.  He quickly went to work giving it a good cleaning, getting the smell out (HA!) and fixing all the little things we hadn't bothered with in a year or so because we knew we'd be getting a new vehicle.

He has power door locks and windows now and said that he feels like he's in the lap of luxury driving our old Passport.  :)   It was bitter sweet watching our faithful Passport drive off.   Hunter was, however, happy to know that the vehicle he missed so much was not going away forever and that he'd get to see it whenever Grandpa came to visit. 

We are settling into the unfamiliarity of a luxury vehicle quite nicely.  It's been fun watching the gas mileage gauge shoot up to 40+ miles per gallon when I am careful not to accelerate too quickly and get to a nice coast.  Our gas bill has gone down about $60 a month!  Total bonus!

And I was delighted when my mom visited a couple weeks ago and we were able to all go to church together comfortably in the same vehicle.  I can't wait to fill the seats with my boys and their friends and head out to exciting places and have new adventures together.  We also can't wait to take cross-country road trips to Kansas City to visit Grandma in comfort. 

Both Josh and I are absolutely thrilled with our new van and are so thankful to GOD for providing it for our family!!