A New Year, A New Car

It sure feels like that anyway!  HOPEFULLY, we have finally found the right vehicle for our situation and we can stop running a used car lot from our driveway!  

The bus was fine in that it fits both wheelchairs, the rest of our family, and all of Bryce and Annalise's supplies.  The Jetta (AKA Green Smoothie) was great in that it gets great gas mileage and it was nice to have a smaller car to run around town in when I am on my own.  However, we quickly learned that this combination of vehicles is not the best.  First of all, I rarely go anywhere on my own, so having a small car without a wheelchair hook up is just silly...it's just not realistic.  And second of all, there are many times that I only need to take one of the little ones to Phoenix or some other place for an appointment and it was costing us 50 bucks each time we had an appointment.  Crazy!  

So, I did some more searching and decided that a minivan that would hold one wheelchair might be a better option.  However, even the 10+ year old converted minivans were crazy expensive!  I was bidding on some through ebay motors only to find out that the reserve for those was about $10,000 more than I was bidding.  Ouch!   And they weren't anywhere near new or super nice!  Finally, I ended up contacting a company in Florida regarding one of the vans they had for sale.  I told them what we were looking for and what our price range was .  They said that the van I was looking at was much more expensive than that, but they had another one that had just come into their lot that may work for what we needed.  It is a 2001, but only had 31,000 miles on it and looked brand new.  They sent us pictures and we fell in love.  That was right before Christmas.  We worked things out with the dealership in Florida and by New Year's Day, we had our new van.

The only problem with it was that it arrived without the title!  So we contacted them and they said that they had just sent it to us by UPS.  About a week later, we had the title and were able to drive our van.   

It took some getting used to by Bryce, but he is now very comfortable in it.

 The best part about this van is that because of the way the conversion was done and the type of ramp that they put in, both of the small wheelchairs can fit at the same time!  Serious bonus!  Now we don't have to take the bus to church or other short trips!  

Who would have thought that we would be back in a minivan!  It's tight, but everyone fits.  When everyone is in, there isn't much room for anything else, so whenever we go on any over night or all day trips, we will have to take the bus, but for quick trips to Phoenix, or church, or around town, we can all ride in a "normal" size vehicle that gets good gas mileage once again.  This van is truly a blessing. Now as long as this one keeps running and if we can just sell the green smoothie and one of the buses, we'll be all set!