Leonard and I were 21 when we got married, and we were BROKE college kids! I had a car my senior year of high school that I bought the summer before and it lasted almost a year before it completely died (1981 Mazda 626). After we got married Leonard's parents cosigned a loan so we could buy a 1980 Volvo (can't even remember which model it was, but it had an E, fancy!). We had it for 3 years, before it got totaled in a car accident with an 18 year-old girl, who made an illegal left turn from on-coming traffic right in front of us. Luckily, the 4 of us in the accident weren't severely injured, but our car was. We bought a used Lincoln Town Car (can't remember what year it was made) with our insurance compensation. This car also lasted a year. Our mechanic offered to trade us a used Dodge Caravan (again can't remember the year) for it as we had our twins on the way. Of course, we agreed and of course, it was another lemon that didn't even make it to them being 6 months old. So off we moved to Canada without a car hoping to get one soon. "Soon" turned into TWO years later, whew! Then we were able to buy a 2000 Chevy Cavalier (it was 2004) so it was by far the newest vehicle we had owned. We loved that car! A year later we moved to Taiwan, and unfortunately it was one year too old for us to bring it with us. So we went there hoping to get by with public transportation. After living there for 3 months we bought a car from an Irish girl moving back home. It was the tiniest sedan I had ever seen in my life- a Nissan March. We drove it for a year and a half. Even though it had 5 seat-belts in it, after Gavin was born there was hardly any room for Kaleb and Noé to squeeze in beside his car-seat (and they were only 4!). About six months after Gavin was born some good friends of ours were moving back to the States and they sold their minivan to us, a 2001 Toyota Sienna. We drove that van for 7 years and welcomed Teague and Hiram to the family with it. When I was pregnant with Ali though, we knew we needed to upgrade to an 8-seater. We had planned on getting another Sienna, but after checking out the 8-seaters we liked the Honda Odyssey better, so in 2014 we bought our very first brand new car- and we still drive it and love it!
When I was pregnant with Macy (2017) we had to decide if we'd get a full-sized van or a second car. We opted to get a second car. Even though I miss taking road trips (or even going to church on Sundays) all together, it has been heaven having a second car.
This is the second brand new car we've ever bought. This time I thought we'd stick with Honda and get an Accord, but we actually went back to Toyota and got a Corolla. (Even though it has become "Len's" car and the minivan is "mine" I still can't believe we didn't buy a cute yellow VW bug!) It has been so nice to have a second car though! Leonard's commute has been cut in half and it's so convenient now that we have teenage drivers too.
The day I took the pictures of our cars I also took pictures of the first house we bought. We loved this house for the first 7 years we lived in it. After we moved back from India it never felt the same as it did before. After our tenants destroyed it, we pretty much renovated the entire thing, so even though it was nicer it didn't feel like home the same way. I'm so grateful we've been able to build our second house (the 12th place Len and I have lived in together). I can't wait to get completely settled into our new home and share pictures of it here.
