Saying goodbye is hard to do.

I dont deal very well with change, even if its for the better I still have anxiety that comes with any kind of change. For the past 3 summers my air conditioning in the van hasnt worked very well. I kept telling myself "by next summer we will have a better car or I we will beable to fix the air". This past year we have had to put a lot of money and work into the van. The tranny went out and we put lots of money we didnt have into fixing that, and about 2 months ago the water pump went out when Trent and I were clear on the other side of town. I went and bought the water pump but I just havent been able to locate it on the van. Its been sitting like this ever since.

My Mom and Dad have been nice enough to let me drive there Pathfinder everytime my van has broken down.

Trent and I bought our van the first weekend in July 2000. We were driving a 1995 Ford Windstar at the time and the head gasket kept cracking (factory defect that was recalled and covered). It started acting up for the 3rd time and we had gotten a wild hair up our butts and decided to go look around, not really intending to buy a car. We had stopped by a Ford dealership first and they had the new Freestar that replaced the Windstar. It was nice but not in our price range. While we were there we saw the "new" Excursions. I had fallen in love right then and that had become my dream car. We went to a Dodge dealer next and found our van and brought it home. I have loved this van. I know every sound it makes and exactly how it drives. I can tell right away if something is wrong even before it happens, I can just feel it. In fact one time on our way home from Utah, we were just north of Beaver (HA HA HA Filmore Beaver Ellen!) and it was feeling funny. It felt like the front tires were low. We pulled over into a rest area and checked but could see nothing wrong. We got back in the car and headed home. I could still feel it so we pulled into a service station in Beaver and the serviceman put it up on the lift and checked them and told us that we needed new front tires. He said that they were seperated from the inside and that we were really lucky we didnt have a blow out.

Little off topic. So anyway, our van has been sitting in our drive way and the other morning I decided to look online for something we might beable to afford. We havent had a payment on the van for almost 3 years now and I wasnt wanting to have one again, but we are at the point that its a neccesity. I really like the Saturn Outlook, but they are a little small for my family. I also really like the new dodge caravans and found a couple in our price range. Since I was looking at cars I decided to do a search for an excursion in our price range. I have actually done this randomly since I fell in love with it in July of 2000. I guess I picked the right morning to look cuz low and behold I found her! Here she is:

Its a Black 2002 Excursion Limited 4x4 diesel (7.3L)

She has the second row captians chairs (like I wanted)

She has the tow package with a trailer brake.

An upgraded Pioneer stereo with Sirius satelite, both front seats are electric with heat. The drivers side has 2 memory positions. The pedals move forward and back. You can set the inside temp and it will automatically adjust to that temp. It is just WAYYYY too nice for me and I still cant believe she's MINE!!!

Bull ring with off road lights

She has a 4 inch lift with 18 inch rims with 35's on her. She is just so purdy, I cant hardly stand it!

I found her in Cedar City! I still cant believe she's ours. When I saw her on Cars.com I thought, ok, our credit sucks because of my medical bills and Trent is self employed so that will be hard to prove income, but I'll call about it and see what happens. When I called on saturday morning, I told the salesman right up front that I have medical bills on my credit and that Trent is self employed. He asked for our info and said we could give it a shot. I didnt hear back from him til late saturday, all day I was assuming that it was becasue he had bad news. He called to let us know that it was late in the day and because it was saturday he hadnt heard back from any banks.

Monday morning he called me to let me know that Ford would finance it at 13.9% That was more then I was comfortable paying so the dealer said he would submit it a couple more places and see what we get. Mean while Trent and I had prayed about it (becasue just the thought of getting it was giving me anxiety) and we both had a reall good feeling about it and decided that if we got it at a decent interest rate we would know it was ok to get it. On Tuesday the dealer called and said "I'm not sure how to ask this, but I noticed you are a member of Cumorah Credit Union, is that an LDS credit union?" I told him yes and he said, "so are you LDS?" I answered yes and he said "great, we have an offer for 8.9% interest at a credit union based out of SLC but you have to be LDS to join."

Thursday Jan. 15th I went to Kingman and helped clean Candice's house and brought Kendra back with me and Friday morning we headed to Cedar. We stopped in St. George for Kendra to pick up a Wii Fit, and came out to start up dads car and it wouldnt start. I asked a lady that was next to us if she could jump start us and that didnt do it. I got out dad's jack wrench thing and tapped the cables down tighter on the battery. As I was doing that 3 nice young men (19 to 22ish) walked by and asked if the car wasnt started. I said it wont. He said well try to start it and lets see what it does. I got in and turned it over and it started right up. Kendra said it just took 3 hot guys to get it started.

So we made it to Cedar City and when I pulled into the dealership my X was parked right up front. We took her for a test drive and I started to panic! It took off slower then Trents truck and it was alot taller then it looked. after the test drive I told Kendra that I didnt think I wanted it so I told the dealer that I didnt know if I liked the lift. He had the service manager come out and look at it and tell me what I could do to lower it a bit. Then I started worrying about the cost of replacing the tires @@. Then I was worried about how it took off so I called a friend of ours that had a diesel excursion and asked him about it and he explained to me that the excursion weighs twice as much as Trents truck so compairing it to his truck isnt fair. So I felt much better, but I still wasnt sure so I told the dealer that we were going to go to luch while I thought it over. He said we could take Her with us so I did. It felt much better driving it the second time, and it sure looked good sitting in the parking lot. Trent called me to see how things were going and I told him I didnt think I was going to bring it home and I listed the reasons and he said, "just bring our baby home" When we got to the dealership I told him I would take it and I brought her home.

Now its time to say goodbye to the van....sniff sniff!

But I think I will adjust.