Presto Change-O

Ta-Da!

This is our "new" van. The Montana was, indeed, totaled and we were happy to find this '03 Chevy Venture. We intentionally ordered the Montana mud-colored. This one is actually red but, as it's been raining since we drove it off the lot yesterday, you'd think it was the same old color (which gives you a hint as to why we ordered that ugly brown in the first place).

Some friends told us they'd seen a used Montana at a local dealer. We went to look at it Thursday night but it was a smoker's car, so not for us. This Venture was sitting next to it. We didn't want to look at something that old, as we were hoping to get at least 5 years out of this vehicle. However, the relatively low mileage made us reconsider.

It seemed like God was putting all the pieces into place, in perfect timing. We even got a much more generous settlement from the insurance company than we expected.

We are excited have both a cassette and cd player so we can listen to audio books in either format. There's also a dvd player, which means we won't have to haul the inverter, tv/vcr, and dvd player along when we drive to Florida. That will be a huge space saver, plus this has headsets so the girls can watch a movie and we can still talk or listen to the radio.

Our poor Montana was 10 years old and showing its age. Over 200,000 miles, the air conditioning, rear wiper, automatic door, and gas gauge had all broken, the driver's window would go down but had to be helped up, and some of the trim was loose where it had been repaired after the first deer ran into it. "But there ain't nothin' wrong with the radio." (Although I don't normally listen to Country, when I heard that song a few years ago I thought it was hilarious.) Having all those extras working makes this seem like a brand new car to us. We feel very blessed.