we. are. minivan owners. (!!!)

The last 2 weeks have been a total God story. I humbly use that term, knowing that compared to so many other people's stories, ours is nothing in comparion....but I have been shown, yet again, how faithful our God is.
I'm going to keep this short, if you want more details, you can email us :)
About 2 weeks ago, our Infiniti (we had it for 2 years) had a SLEW of issues...and expensive ones at that!
We had to get a new battery, new alternator, the dashboard circuitry somehow blew, the muffler cracked.....
ugh.
In the middle of all this we decided to get rid of it and get a minivan.We had been talking for a few months whether we should go with getting a van, or wait a while....vans are expensive and between then baby and getting our house fixed (they built it wrong...it's along story) we have some rather large expenses coming up :)
Last week, Nick listed the car on Craigslist. we got 3 calls on it within 3 hours of posting it! We didn't have the car back from Nick's family member who was working on it, so we were nervous that maybe we jumped the gun and were considering pulling the listing. Wednesday one of the guys called Nick again and Nick told him that we were getting the muffler fixed and the dash bulb replaced. Thursday he texted Nick b/c he wanted to look at the car AND he made an offer! By then the car was done, but the dash lights were still out and we couldn't figure out why. Nick went ahead and got the car and went to meet the guy...we were both thinking there is no way he's going to want it with no dash lights.....but he wanted it! He gave us just  a few hundred less than we were asking and we are both still in shock about it!
This whole time, I kept praying for patience....that we wouldn't rush into just getting rid of the car or buying the first van we came across. We have a tendency to jump into making decisions, and we really wanted to be patient. God knew what we needed and we were going to take our time.
When the guy bought the car, I about started crying. Every odd was against us in getting rid of that thing... yet it sold.  We started looking online at used vans at dealerships around Des Moines on Thursday. Friday we went and looked at 2 and made an offer on one. We aren't taking out any loans, so we had to be firm on a price. They wouldn't come down, so we walked.
We knew we wanted a more basic model...we don't need all the bells and whistles...and less risk of something needing replaced in the future ;)
That afternoon, we went with my stepdad and looked at a total of 15 vans (!!!). We had to wait until today to decide on a purchase, so we went to visit Nick's family in MN this weekend....which was good b/c it totally took our mind off of finding a van.
Today we got a 2008 Dodge Grand Caravan SXT with just 27,000 miles on it (!!!!)...it's more than I ever thought we would find...the funny thing is that when we were looking at vans Friday, this is one that I just passed by b/c of the dark grey interior (dark interior + dirt and crumbs +kids = dirty interior that you can see).....but God knew what we needed and this van must be it :) I love it....and the dark grey isn't bad like I thought.
God completely rewards patience (although, I know that results are always amazing as this). These last 2 weeks, I've been reminded that God provides what we NEED.....not what we want....and not in OUR time frame ;)   I've learned to trust Him to provide for us and to be patient and have faith that everything will be fine.
Like I said, this is such a trivial thing compared to so many other peoples stories out there ,but I've learned alot the last 2 weeks and really wanted to share with you :)
Oh yeah.....here's some pictures of the minivan :) This car is going to be in our family for at least a good 10 years of so :)
...and by the way...I have never been against getting a van...they definitely don't have the style of an SUV, but the stow n go storage is the most amazing thing ever, it's going to accomodate our growing family and there is SO MUCH ROOM! :) Both Nick and I grew up with vans, so they aren't a new concept to us......but I haven't driven one in 10 years, so driving home today took a little getting used to. ;)

(no, it's not leather...which would have been nice...but none of the vans we had as options had leather...which is fine b/c this cloth interior is pretty nice...not like the old plush stuff that clung to every crumb and piece of dirt!)

Adelyn loves it too :)