Fri Oct 29 & Sat Oct 30

Tonight's daily thankfulness blog post is a 2-fer. Last night, I was so wound up after the football game (2 Dr. Peppers will do that to ya), I couldn't focus. So I didn't post. Sorry folks! (or folk. I have no idea who's reading this or if anyone is!)

Today I'm grateful for my vehicle. I know, it seems silly to be grateful for a van, but let's just be honest. We're all grateful for material items. And besides, I can't write about non-tangible things I'm thankful for all month long! World peace & a cure to hunger can only take up so many posts. ha ha! (oh wait....we don't have either of those things yet so I can't be thankful for them...yet. Dang, my quick wit didn't work out this time and now I probably sound like a big meanie. Hmm....moving on.)

In 2006 when we 'adopted' our niece & nephew, we had a 1998 Ford Windstar minivan. It had about 130,000 miles on it. It only had 1 back (sliding side) door on the passenger's side. The bench seat in the middle row made it hard to get into the back row of seats if you are taller than a 3 year old. And there were lots of 'little' problems starting to happen with it that we suspected were leading to much bigger, scarier (and more expensive!) repairs. Knowing that I am the primary driver & caregiver for our kids, we felt like it was safest to get a new(er) mini-van. We were concerned that I might break down somewhere with 5 kids (under the age of 10), so the quest was on for a new van with fewer miles and if possible, captain's chairs in the 2nd row. And we knew that some of the newer mini-vans were being made with a wider wheel base, which means a LITTLE more room to stretch out in the back 2 rows of seats. We called our friend who is the used car manager at a local dealership & told him what was going on & what we needed. Like always, he found what we needed at a price we could afford within a couple of days. (Way to go Josh! You rock! Check him out at this dealership if you're local to us!) And so, we became the owners of a new (to us!) 2003 Honda Odyssey with captain's chairs in the center row, a wider wheel base, dual sliding side doors and a million other features that made this van totally trump our falling-apart Windstar. We're still driving this van today & although it's now got 120K+ miles & a few electrical glitches, it's still running perfectly & fits our family just fine, so I suspect we'll have it for a little while longer.




I'm not just thankful for the van itself, although I do think we're pretty blessed to have a reliable vehicle that I feel safe driving my family around in. The truth is, I'm incredibly grateful for the time we spend inside the doors of this van. We laugh together. Larry & I have great talks. The kids interact (usually!) much better than they do outside the van. We sing (sometimes along to a CD). We joke around. We take silly pictures. We eat. We drink. We are merry! We deliver meals to friends & family after births, deaths, surgeries, adoptions. We talk about God & Scriptures & "big issues" of life. I can't tell you how many serious parental conversations we've had while driving down the road with the kids.

Sure, the kids fight and drinks get spilled. Youngsters have thrown up (several times) and tears have been soaked up by the seats. The kids have fought over who sits in which chair and Larry or I have gotten lost & had to re-drive miles to find the right way. But despite the sometimes yucky stuff that goes on inside the van, the majority of it has made me smile. Our family has lots of memories inside our van. And so tonight, I'm thankful for my mini-van!

NOTE: These pictures are not my van. They are just stock pictures I found online that look like my van without all the crap in the floorboards.