Our New Car

I can't believe we did it. We bought another car. This is a 2008 Volkswagen Rabbit. It's a smidge smaller in the trunk than the Saturn was, but the other features more than make up for it.

So what prompted this? I knew we were upside down in our loan on the Saturn, and I'd heard on the radio that this auto dealer was offering 125% trade-in value. So I thought I might as well give it a shot. I called them on the way up to PCMC for Audrey's infusion. Much to my surprise, I was approved! I thought okay, I'll go looking after we get done at the hospital, and some friends from the ward bring over dinner. Gene picked up a shift at the VA, so I called my dad and asked him to go looking at cars with me. I learned after one disastrous experience that I never go car shopping without a man with me, preferably my dad. They don't dare bullcrap my dad - he sees right through it. So Bryce was already with mom and dad, so I dropped Audrey off, and Dad and I took off. The first car I test drove was a 2007 Ford Fusion, and it was nice, but I wasn't drooling over it. It had a few less miles than the Saturn, but not by much. Then they brought out the Rabbit, and Dad's first words were "oh, that looks nice." The salesman started talking about the car, and mentioned heated seats, and I was immediately in love with it. We took it for a test drive, it drove really nice. So we went back and I said that this is the car I want, let's go make it happen. We were having a really tough time crunching the numbers to make them work, so I test drove a Ford Focus and WAS NOT IMPRESSED. I didn't like it at all, and it was slipping all over the road. The next car was a 2006 Mazda 6, and it was okay, but after driving the VW, not what I wanted. So we went back and told the dealer that I'm okay with keeping my Saturn, and if we couldn't get the deal to work for the VW, then I was leaving. We got it to work, and drove home the car on Saturday night. Yeah me! We got a better, safer car with better resale value, so once Gene actually saw the car, it's features, and considered the resale value, he was okay with it. I have to admit that I was scared of his reaction because he didn't want to do it, but Dad felt really strongly that this was a better car for us, and we needed to do it and get out from under the Saturn. You can go to www.volkswagen.com to check out the Rabbit that we bought.

Audrey did really well with her infusion Saturday. Unfortunately we were driving up there in the snow, which was a bit of a challenge. She absolutely hates getting poked for the IV. Carmen (one of the nurses up there) and Audrey have kind of bonded, and even though she wasn't our nurse this time, knows Audrey well enough that she tried to get her IV started. She also knows my daughter well enough to know that Audrey hates the pokes, and since she wasn't able to get it on the first try, called in the IV team. Once the IV is started, she's okay. I think the part she enjoys the most is getting to order whatever she wants off the menu. Typical 5 year old!!