So it's official...Scott and I are getting old. We've been married for 3+ years, have a beautiful 11 1/2 month old child and are now the proud owners of a minivan! After much discussion about our future and the practicality of owning a van, Scott and I started to do some research on purchasing a minivan. We were thinking that sometime in the next 6-12 months we would want to make the big move, but it just so happens that things went a little quicker than that! We went down to the Toyota dealership in Concord on Saturday to check out a used minivan that we had seen online. As we were driving down we talked about how we were just trying to get the process started, we were going down to Concord to do other errands anyways and just wanted to check out the car while we were in the area. Unfortunately, the specific used van that we had gone to see was already sold (they said they can't keep Siennas on the lot for long at all these days!) but another family had literally just traded in another Sienna hours earlier that we were welcome to look at. It was the exact color we had wanted, the 2006 LE model that we were hoping to find and in the price range that we could afford! We took it for a test drive and checked out the car - it was in excellent condition inside and out and only had 33,000 miles on it! Jeff, our very nice and not pushy salesman (seriously - he was awesome!) told us what they would sell it to us for and what they could give us for our Camry. Scott told them we couldn't afford their price and they asked us what we would be willing to pay if we signed papers that day. Scott gave him a number and they not only accepted it, but also offered us $1,000 more for our car than originally offered! They were told that they had to meet a certain quota for sales that day, and as a result, were willing to accept a lower offer if we signed the papers then and there! We bought our new(used) Sienna for below the Bluebook price and traded in our 2005 Camry for above the Bluebook price! We spent hours at the dealership on Saturday, and Camden was such a trooper throughout the entire process. We are excited to have more space in our car when we travel. We loved our Camry as a first car. We purchased it together in 2005 when we were engaged shortly after both of our old beater Hondas died within a week of each other. We were about to start jobs at Cardigan Mountain School and knew that we wouldn't often be leaving campus without the other person (since you never get off campus when you work at a boarding school - particularly one that is in the middle of nowhere) so we decided to buy a car together rather than get two. It was a little bit sad for us to part ways with the Camry, as it treated us very well over these last four years, but we knew it was time. We had to take the wheels off of our jogging stroller to fit it into the trunk of the car and Scott couldn't squeeze Camden through the small space between the door and his carseat without bumping Camden's head on the car. We hope to have another child(ren?) in the future and since we only have one car it's nice to have one that we can fit bigger things into as well. After years of borrowing my dad's truck or car to pick up bigger loads (crib mattress at Babies R Us, our TV cabinet off of Craig's List recently etc...) it will be nice to have our own vehicle to use when needed!
The biggest adjustment is the image that comes along with driving a minivan. I just turned 27 in June and Scott won't turn 27 until October. We very well might be the youngest minivan drivers in the world, but we don't care! We are so excited about it and feel like it was a great purchase for our family. We're packing it up today and heading to Maine for a wedding! Yippee!
Scott cleaning out our Camry...
We went from engagement to marriage to a family of three with this car!
Driving down to make the big trade on Tuesday...
Probably the biggest thing we will miss is having a standard! Bye bye clutch! :(
The odometer of our Camry. Lots of miles and never had to do any work to it!
Camden will have more space in the minivan!
Our old car parked next to our new van at the dealership!
Our new interior!
Sooooo excited!!!
Our new car in our rainy driveway! We couldn't be happier!
