2007 (not a Space) Odyssey

I just realized that I haven't written about out latest major purchase -- a new 2007 Honda Odyssey! We originally were not real excited about going into debt again (the only debt that we've had for awhile is our house) but we have already paid it off (thanks to some help from the family).

Our old van was a 2000 Plymouth Grand Voyager and it had over 125,000 miles on it. We put it in the shop and when our mechanic said "it'll be around $800" my response was "no, it won't!" Since Heather broke down by herself with all of the kids driving to New Orleans to visit some of the friends that we made from the Katrina diaspora, our confidence in that van was in major decline. We got $2,000 for that van and were thankful for it. It's a good thing we sold it too! A friend of ours bought the van for his dealership and a week after he sold it the new owner called and told him the engine blew on it — thank you Lord!

We had been saving money for a new van but the cash on hand would only buy us another run down van. After weighing our options and praying over it, we decided that we should go into debt and get a little better van and focus on paying it off as quickly as possible. Our family then stepped in and offered to pay the difference between what we were willing to spend and the cost of a new van. So, we got our dream and went shopping for a new Toyota Sienna or Honda Odyssey. The Sienna's didn't impress us near as much as the Odyssey's.

The only thing that the kids cared about was a built in DVD player. When we started looking for used vehicles, we told the kids to pray specifically that we would find the right van with a DVD player since I wasn't willing to pay much extra for it. The model of Odyssey that comes with the DVD player also happens to come equipped with a 6 disc CD changer, sun roof, leather interior, and other awesome trimmings that we wouldn't ordinarily care about. Since the dealer just got a big shipment of 2008 models, we negotiated a great deal on a 2007 model!

Thank you family and thank you Lord for providing us everything we could have asked for or imagined!