A surprise family addition

Today we took the leap and bought a new car!!

Some of you may know that we have been saving since we moved for a new, larger, more family friendly vehicle.  I was once told (by a dealer) that the best time of year to buy is at the end of December, when salespeople are trying to get their yearly quotas met and are more likely to deal with you.  With the new baby coming in a few weeks, we decided to get a move on (well Jeremy did and I agreed, I think this is his way of nesting).  After weeks of research, test drives of our top two options last weekend, and four hours of negotiation last night, we did it!

Behold, our new ride!

It's a 2014 Nissan Rogue SV, Premium Package, roof rails, sun roof, navigation system, Bluetooth compatible, and a bunch of other bells and whistles for quite a steal, if I do say so myself.  Jeremy did an awesome job handling all the negotiations while I was at work.  Just being in the office to sign off on the trade-in of his vehicle was exhausting for me.  It will primarily be his car, and the first new car he has driven in a long time, if ever.  Judging by the picture, he is quite pleased with our new ride:

Haven't seen a smile this big since Scotland :-)

Maybe it's the pregnancy hormones, but I found myself getting emotional about saying goodbye to his old car.  It's the same car that he has been driving since before we met, a 1997 Honda Civic.  It was the car he came to rescue me in during my freshman year of college when I was stranded in the rain at a grocery store.  I called him, as the only person I knew with a car, and with full knowledge that he liked me enough to grant me a huge favor.  He was my knight and it was his steed!  It's where I learned that men sometimes assess the quality of their dates by whether or not they reach over to unlock the driver's side door after opening the passenger side for them (which I totally didn't do the first time, but I did ever since).  It also still had the faded American flag decal that I stuck in the window on September 12, 2001, still hanging strong 12 years later.  The smell of sitting in the car always reminds me of all the grocery trips we took in college, and long car trips to see his family in Niceville.  It's not the nicest car in the world, but it was our ride during the early years.  So I was a little sad to see it go, faded paint, manual windows, limited radio stations, and all.

I just had to take one last picture!  Goodbye, old friend!