My New "Mom Van"!

I currently drive a Tahoe (as a perk of my job) that I'll have to surrender in October, so Dave and I have been casually car shopping this summer.  Originally, I was dead set on getting either a Ford Escape or a Jeep Liberty, and I researched those to no end and found lots of used ones within our price range.  A conversation with my sister about cars started to change my mind though.  Since I spend my day driving kids around, I know how much stuff they have and room they take up, and when they get older and want to have friends over you run out of room in a vehicle pretty quickly.  The Tahoe only seats five, and when the kids I nanny for were little, it was almost impossible for them to each bring a friend home because none of them could sit in the front seat.  I'm not proud to admit this, but I had four kids in the back seat more often than I should have!  So, Dave and I started talking about just getting a larger vehicle right from the start.  We planned to buy a used car, and it needed to be something that we could drive as our family car for years and years to come.  This past weekend we totally lucked out and found an awesome 2005 Dodge Caravan in really excellent condition.  It only has 44,000 miles on it, which is pretty much unheard of for a used minivan in our price range!  There are a few tiny scratches and dings on the outside, but the interior is immaculate.  We both test drove it and decided immediately that we wanted it.  Thankfully, the salesman that we worked with at Sundance was very willing to negotiate with us, and we were able to buy it on the spot for a very reasonable price!  We picked it up yesterday and have had fun taking turns driving it.  It doesn't make sense for me to drive it to work yet since I still have the Tahoe, so Dave took it to work today and then I took it to run an errand after work.  It's just so fun to have a new (to us!) vehicle.  We really love how well it handles, how spacious it is, and how new it feels, even though it's 7 years old!  Here are a few pictures that were taken at the dealership of our new ride:

I can't wait to start driving it full time in a few months!