You ever notice....

Did you ever notice that everything seems to hit at once?  Here we 
are just minding our own business when out of the blue a routine oil change becomes a lot more.  We had the van in for an oil change and Melissa mentioned something to the guy that our "Check Engine" light had been coming on and going off for a while now.  He said he'd check into it.  Turns out that the error causing the light to come on was our transmission.  He said that 2% or the time you can change the transmission fluid and take care of the problem.  Ok, so now our Friday has just taken a huge turn for the worst.

We dont' have what you'd call good credit.  Most conventional banks would just laugh at us and show us the door.  Let's just say when I registered for college I checked my "financial" brain at the door.  Unfortunately, my wife and kids are paying for it now.  That's why I love our Credit Union at work.  They seem to use a different calculation when figuring out loans and such.  Long story short (too late) I found myself there Friday asking some "hypothetical" questions.  Melissa and the kids came by work and picked me up and we were off to do some shopping.

A few hours later, and numerous calls to the Credit Union, we had found what we wanted.  The nice folks at Shottenkirk worked with us despite the children and let us take it home that night.  We got a 2002 Dodge Grand Caravan.  It's got about 1/3 the miles the old van had and is 5 years newer.  I really feel for the poor sap that had to clean the old van out.  While we were getting our personal belongings out I found gum stuck to everything imaginable.  Not to mention Cheerios and M&M's shoved in every crevice you could see.  Effective immediatly, there's a no eating policy in the new van (of course that doesn't apply to parents, as long as they're tidy.)