An Early Christmas Present

Once upon a time we had what I thought to be my (almost) dream car. My dream car growing up was a Volkswagen Beetle. When I met Mathew and he owned a Volkswagen Passat, I figured that was pretty darn close, and I was ecstatic. Finally, my not-really-but-close-enough dreams were coming true...I was an owner - through marriage - of a Volkswagen car.

Then that car became the biggest pain in our necks. It ran great for a while, and then the timing belt broke. At that point we had to make a decision, replace the engine, or buy a new car. Silly us, we chose the first option. We put a huge chunk of money into fixing that car and it never did get fixed for real. It beeped at us all the time, had lights flashing in the dash telling us to fix one thing or another, and the battery has been replaced several times. There's more but it would be a long and boring list. We hate that stupid Passat, but were never in a position to replace it.

Until now!

We are the proud owners of a snazzy 2012 Chevy Malibu and we LOVE it!

Oh and yes that is my 1995 Ford Escort Stella in the background. That car has been amazing to me over the years. Go Ford!

We traded in that pathetic Passat for almost nothing (piece of juuuuunk) and haven't looked back. Some would say we basically just gave the Passat away, but I say we got a ridiculous thorn in our side out after a lot of festering...therefore totally worth it. Plus the price of this car was really great, so we just didn't have to do any haggling. Even better.

We had no intentions of purchasing a car on Saturday. We had our hearts set on a Ford Fusion. However, after almost getting ourselves stuck with a Fusion that smelled really bad (thanks to a strong prompting to go back and look in the daylight we saved ourselves), we decided to test drive some other cars just for fun. We found this baby and we were sold the second we sat in it.

We found it about 20 minutes before nap time so Ellie was quite the handful for the FOUR hours we were at the dealership. Poor girl. I ended up having to feed her in the dealer's manager's office where she fell asleep almost immediately and stayed asleep for maybe 20 minutes, then the squealing picked up again. Some of you know what squealing I'm talking about. If you don't, your ear drums should thank you!

Back to the car. We are so grateful to know we have a reliable car that doesn't cost a fortune to fix. We will never ever buy a European car again. I no longer have dreams of owning a Beetle. American made cars all the way! Merry Christmas to us!