New Van and the Day After

Once we knew that we had a baby on the way Allen and I agreed that we would need another vehicle.  We've gotten by with one ever since my first college car conked out shortly after we got married.  Living in a small town has made it doable, but with Liam starting kindergarten next year and the general amounts of extra stuff needed for another family member on trips....Well it adds up to not only needing another, but needing a bigger one.  We found this mini-van that is within our price range and seems to be in very good shape.  It's leaking some oil.  Hard to tell how much - hopefully not much!   So far I like driving it and it's easier to get Liam in and out of his car seat.

It's a 2000 Toyota Sienna.  It seems to have gotten some TLC from the single owner it had before us.  We drove it for the first time and bought it yesterday.  The price had been reduced and we didn't want it getting bought out from under us.
 

Here's one with me, just for a little perspective.  People seem to so often drive some place and then take a picture of themselves in front of their car (although I may be dated on that one.  Now people just take thousands of digital pics of everything they see wherever they are.)  So here's one of me, having gone nowhere, in front of our new car.

Liam thought you would appreciate this picture of bird poop which is already on our otherwise as-clean-as-it-will-ever-get car.

I think that the poop got on because I parked near a tree when we went to our friend's house today.  Buying a new vehicle gives one an urge to DRIVE somewhere!  So I drove clear to our friend's house - about five minutes away.  I love visiting these friends for so many reasons.  Liam has fun, we get an authentic Chinese lunch and I can hang out and talk to another mom who has more experience than me and lots of wisdom. 

We used to have to watch these boys pretty closely when they played together because they were likely to fight over toys.  Today they worked on separate projects, then found a way to play together.  It did involve some chasing and "eating."  Hard to avoid, I guess when you have a shark and a submarine that shoots water.  But when we suggested that they might be getting a bit rough they both claimed that it was just pretend and they were fine.  (Notice the sheet on the floor under the Legos.  I've seen pricey versions of this idea for sale online, but this works great - just gather up the corners and put the whole thing in a tote.  Things are never so organized at our house!)

Liam did take a break to "snuggle" with me on the couch.  So his friend tried out his photography skills.  Liam pointed out that I wasn't smiling.  I was trying to give some on-the-spot instruction.  If anyone had thought to grab the camera a little earlier they could have caught me actually snoozing.

Here you can see the actual shark and sub in a moment of relative tranquility.  I probably should have taken a video because the discussions between these two boys are priceless and unfortunately already mostly gone from my memory.  They are so fun to watch playing together!

As an added bonus, we saw a rabbit tonight when we were taking pictures of the van.  At first it was holding so still Liam didn't think it was real.  He wanted to see how close he could get by sneaking up to it.  Here are the shots I got.  I love his body language.  The last one is just after the rabbit took off.