New Van!

Thursday I needed the car for our make-up lunch date with Rachel, so I got up early and took Tim to work.

After I dropped him off, I took Luke to CHKD for his GI blood work to be done.  It was pretty darn miserable.  They did a great job the SECOND time they tried, but the first time the nurse didn't hold on to his arm tight enough (I had his other arm, body, and legs restrained) and he managed to twist the catheter & eventually blow the vein.  On the second try she held much tighter & although he screamed bloody murder the whole time, she got the needed blood.

We left there & headed towards Virginia Beach.  Luke fell asleep in the car (he'd been up almost 3 hours at that point & been through the ordeal at CHKD) so I went to Chic Fil A and got myself some breakfast.  I ate that breakfast parked outside of my in-laws' house, so that I could use their wi-fi to surf the web & then read on my i-Pad!

After I ate we drove by Kid-to-Kid, but they were closed. :(  Then we drove over to the CHKD thrift store.  They didn't have any large play equipment outside, so we didn't even go in.  Luke woke up while we were heading back towards Lynnhaven, so we went to Goodwill then & I bought a couple wool sweaters to turn into diaper covers for the boys.


After CHKD, I went to Rock A Bye & bought Luke some new roll-arounds & an itty-bitty preemie Carters layette for the newbie.  I snapped a picture of it, but the focus is off & it is now in the wash so I can't post any!  It says, "I Rule, (In my little kingdom)"  and has a picture of a lion with a crown on the bum of the pants!

Then it was time to grab some lunch for Rachel & Luke (I was too sick to my stomach) and head to Rachel's house.

Rachel & I had a good visit & mostly just gabbed about our pregnancies.  Luke enjoyed playing with all of Bennett's trains & cars.

After I left Rachel's house I headed to Western Branch to get an oil change done in the car.  While I was there I had an appointment to check out a van Tim found listed online.

First up, I got Luke's car seat installed in the van. Then we took it out for a test drive.  When I was satisfied with that part of it, we got a tall salesman (6'3") to try it out with Luke's seat in both center row positions.  Since he had enough room to drive & ride comfortably, I let Tim know this might just be the van for us!

 I tried out Luke's seat in a few other positions & made sure that we would definitely be able to accommodate two or more rearfacing car seats in this vehicle.  (I plan on Luke rearfacing to the full 45 lb limit of his car seat.)

Then it was time for me to head home & make arrangements to pick Tim up.  I tried to find a Navy Federal so I could start the loan process, but couldn't find one (though I had "directions" to two!) so I ended up trying to go to DMV.  I missed being able to get a temporary tag by 2 minutes. :/

I went home & picked Tim up (he had gotten a ride home) and then we headed to Sonic for some dinner (which I couldn't eat!) and back to the dealership.  It took us less than 2 hours for Tim to test drive the van & then to negotiate with the salesman.  We ended up paying the sticker price & sales tax and that was it.  I refused to pay any handling or processing fees.  We almost left early in the deal, but I think the salesman realized I was serious.  

Supposedly the car was "sold" to an auction house already & would be gone the next day.  I told him, I didn't care about that, I didn't really WANT a '99 anyway! I was in no rush (we have 4 months still!) and would find the RIGHT van at the RIGHT price.

Needless to say, he managed to get the price right before my temper got out of hand & we bought a '99 Toyota Sienna.  It has 85,000 miles on it, so amazingly low mileage for a 12 year old van, one owner, all the maintenance has been done at First Team, and it was REALLY well taken care of!

It was mega-late by then, so we all went to bed when we got home.