Our new find

Dom and I joke that this summer has been a character building summer. With the remodeling between his summer work, and major car problems, we have been learning that God is faithful in all things and these stresses are temporary, and the most important thing is that we have our health.
The week we were supposed to head up to the cabin for the 4th of July, the engine on our honda civic died. This was not in our plan at all! We knew this was a temporary car and were saving for a minivan at some point, but for this to happen at this time was stressful to say the least! So Dom started working on his FJ 40 to have as a very temporary backup until we could save some money for another car. A simple 2 hour project kept growing and 15 hours later he came into the house discouraged. The engine on that was gone too. Both of our car engines were gone within a week of each other! Now he could explain in detail exactly what the problems were with both of the cars, but I will leave that to you! All I know is that they were unfit to drive and would cost too much to repair!
Now we were very discouraged, but figured we would limp by without a car for awhile until we had the cash. Dom would bike to work and I could walk to the grocery store. We are HUGE Dave Ramsey fans and after spending 1 year paying off $15,000 in debt, we cut up and cancelled all of our credit cards (we have a savings account for emergencies in place of credit cards) and are chipping away at our final debt...the student loans. Our goal is to be financially free and the last thing we wanted to do was take out a loan and get us deeper in debt.
So we headed up to the lake by train and were there for 2 1/2 weeks! Our nephew Dustin came up to visit us and we had a great time with him at the lake with him. Now Dom and Dustin were supposed to take a 5 day trip in the FJ out in the wilderness, and so the fact that the FJ died was a huge hiccup in their plans. But again, God really took care of them because Dom said that these problems that happened were inevitable, so thank God it happened while Dom was working on it at home, and not when they were in the middle of nowhere with no cell reception!! God was watching out for them!!
While we were at the cabin, we decided to take a look at minivans for sale on craigslist to see what was out there. We were amazed that there were a couple that we had cash to pay for! So July 27th we came home with this incredible find:

2000 Toyota Sienna

It is in excellent condition, mechanically sound, safe, tons of room, comfortable, great gas mileage (24 which is great for a van) clean, perfect color (hard to tell in this picture though, it's a blue/green/gray) the mid model with power EVERYTHING (mind you, I haven't had a power everything car in 5 years (and our last one didn't even have power steering) so this is luxury!!), and we had the cash to pay for it, thanks to Dom working extra this summer! I always vowed that I would not be one of those moms that would drive a minivan, but now that we have one, I can see why so many families have them. They are so comfortable and easy to get around in! I love grocery shopping and running errands in this!! God provided more than we could have imagined. We were saving for a minivan, but didn't figure we would get one for another year or so. So we are thankful for our bad luck with cars because we ended up with this! :)

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."
Romans 8:28