Car shopping

So does God even care about our car shopping during this adoption process?? Yes I think He does!! I've been shopping for a minivan for a few weeks now- checking the ads, craigslist, dealers, etc... It's not a pleasant process usually and can be frustrating to think of spending a bunch of money on something you hope will last. Our debate was, do we spend less money and get something that will last for a couple of years (we hoped) or spend more and not have to do this again for a long time (again, we hoped!)? So yesterday, we went to a couple of dealers after Jonah's b-ball game. We went to one in Greeley that had a 2006 Toyota Sienna and then we went to one in Ft. COllins that had a 2006 Kia Sedona. Shane hates car shopping with a passion. He's dealt with enough car dealers in his years at the Trib that he doesn't trust them at all. He thought the Sienna was pretty nice and it was below blue book so that was great. Low miles, good condition, etc.... Seemed like a pretty easy decision. But we went to Ft. Collins just to cover our bases. We were not expecting to love the Kia, even though our sweet little Kia Sephia has been running just fine for 9 years for us now.
The salesman that they put us with over there was named Otto. He was a 21 year old kid (yes, I'm old enough to say that 21 is a kid:)). But he knew his cars- you could tell he just really loved them. He had such a great personality too. Long story somewhat shorter, it turns out he's a Christian. And not just a 'I'm trying every angle I can to sell you a car' kind of Christian. He is a really strong Christian- we spent a lot of time with him yesterday (car buying really should be a shorter process!) and we had a lot of meaningful conversation. The only bad part was that we liked him so much, it was hard to negotiate:). We both really wanted to buy a car from this sweet kid. Shane even told him at the end of the day that he usually hates buying cars, but this was a really pleasant experience and he totally meant it. It just put us both at peace and ease about buying this van.
We highly recommend having Otto as your salesman if you're in Ft. Collins- he's at Tynan's Nissan.
SO we now have our new van- only 32,000 miles on it. The boys absolutely LOVE it and are sitting in the way back for whatever reason. We're a 2 Kia family now- traded in the Saturn that we only ended up having for a year, though it was a good car for us in the meantime. Now we can put the van shopping behind us and concentrate on getting our house ready for the boys. I'm praying that I'll be talking to a travel agent soon to plan a trip to Ethiopia!!!