The Story of a Car

Back in July I received an email from Nate asking me if I would be interested in buying a car. These are the pictures he sent:










Um, well, yes...as long as this car was going to look a little less crushed and a lot more "driveable", then yes, I would be interested.

You see, Nate's coworker and good friend, buys totaled cars from auctions at low prices and then through a few friends with mad skills at fixing cars at great prices, he fixes them up and then sells them for a profit. I know, I know...we've all heard the stories of the people out there doing this with not so reputable results, but we know and trust this friend and have watched him do it time and time again with positive outcomes. So starts the journey of our new car...

In October the car was nearing completion...or so we thought. We decided to put our little Sentra up for sale. Our first new car ever. We bought it when we were expecting Kenzie. We needed a car that would fit a car seat. It had given us some happy years and now we were going to use the money from it to pay off some debt and put a nice-sized down payment on our "new" car. Surprisingly, it sold pretty quickly and we got the price we asked.

We thought we'd be down to one car for maybe a month at most. I was okay as long as I had my new car by Thanksgiving. Then if we had to travel in inclement weather for the holidays, we'd have our 4 wheel drive. No such luck. Well, then if we could just get it by Christmas? No such luck there, either. Let me tell you, being in a one car family with two kids in separate schools, Nate working full-time in Richland and going to school in Pasco...this was just not fun...at all.
Thankfully we had some very helpful neighbors/friends who helped make our lives easier by giving rides whenever we needed them. Thanks guys!

By January, we thought for sure we'd get the car. The repairs were done, the okay by the state patrol was done, but he only had a temporary title. The bank won't loan you money on a temporary title. So goes the wait again. There were quite a few days I would call Nate up and say, "forget it, go buy me a mini-van from the dealership! I don't want that car anymore. I don't care how much money we're going to save!"

Thankfully, we stuck it out and on Valentine's Day we got the phone call that our title was in the mail! Last weekend we made the final arrangements with the bank. (That would be over two hours of waiting and signing papers and waiting some more with two very ornery children.) But now I'm driving around this fantastic car...




Isn't it cute? I feel so spoiled!!! We've never owned such a nice car. It has all the bells and whistles and is so much fun to drive. The girls love the sun roof. Even when it's freezing, they beg to have it open. They love to exclaim how they can SEE EVERYTHING, because they're sitting up so high. I love that I can now play my ipod without the fm transmitter that sounds terrible, I love how much power it has, how comfortable the seats are, that I can fit SO MUCH STUFF in the trunk and my keyless entry makes me want to sing songs of joy. I could keep on going. Nate loves that he now has the option to tow stuff, that we can put the seats down and actually buy big stuff and not worry how we're going to get it home and that sun roof makes him pretty happy too. So if you happen to see me drive past, be sure to notice the big smile plastered on my face. Who says a new car can't buy happiness? :-)