So We Bought The Jeep

Matt haggled with Pete via email...Pete's preferred communication.  We prayed about the decision, and Matt agreed to make some pretty low offers that I suggested.  I thought I was playing hardball, and Pete took the offer!  Somewhat reluctantly at first, but ultimately he was just ready to be done with it.  That's what I get for making deals with my husband about buying a car. ha ha.  At least we got a decent price.  We drove it home on Tuesday night and stopped at a car wash to get some grit off of it.


My boys were in love from the start.


Matt trying to get the ball hitch off...it locks and we didn't have the key!  He has since whacked it off.






On Thursday, we hung out with the VanHorns and Jen took me to a car wash to get it detailed.  Jamin & Nathan wanted to drive in the Jeep.  My first time driving it.  And it's stick shift.  Went better than expected!  They loved it and giggled every time the motor revved or I grinded the gears (which of course was only like once!) ha ha.


Thankfully, THIS didn't happen on the way TO the car wash. 


Matt and I drove to pick up the Jeep that night.  On the way home, we ended up in an intersection jumping the Jeep.

By the way, this was AFTER we already jumped it in the Auto Zone parking lot.  We had stopped in there to pick up a few things and it wouldn't start when we went to leave.  Turns out, the alternator was installed incorrectly so we had to put a new one in.  The first 100 into the Jeep :) 

Friday morning and a new windshield installed.  We bought it with some major cracks.


This made me laugh.  One night we drove the Jeep to Target.  AND I drove the Rav4 behind them just to be sure it didn't break down again.  Anyway, when we came out we saw this Suburban parked between the Rav4 and Jeep.  And I counted my blessings in this moment because that was Matt's dream car a year or so ago!  It's like twice the length!!!


Then we wondered where we were going to put it.  So in looking at space and options,


we decided to paint this wall.   I know, weird.  I think I went out in the garage at 10:30pm determined to paint.  This is leftover paint from Nathan's room.


We drive the jeep to Lowe's, Target, for dinner and anywhere else the boys can convince us to take it.




Craig calls Matt a day after we buy the jeep saying he is going to sell his 4Runner to see if he can get more for it than what the dealer wants to give him.  We ran into a lot of unexpected costs and surprises with the Jeep (Pete's not all together a straight forward guy and apparently his mechanical skills are shoddy) and I couldn't believe we could have bought a 4Runner from Craig...who takes incredibly good care of his vehicles!  He is the only owner of his 4Runner.  Not that I wanted a 4Runner before this, but Matt did at one time.  So, we were like "Auggh!"  But we both agreed a 4Runner doesn't give us what a Jeep does and it wasn't ultimately what we (or Matt) was looking for.

I did tell Craig I'd take photos of his 4Runner for him so he could get a good price for it.  I absolutely love taking pictures and selling things on Craigslist.  I love to see how much I can get.  So we went on a search for a good location to take pics of Craig's car this particular night.


The boys had a ball throwing rocks when we let them out of the jeep.




We went through Burger King first.  See the burger sticking out of Josh's mouth?


High five from daddy!












I will say, now that I am looking back on this over a month later, we have had a lot more fun in the Jeep than I realized we would.  It's a fun family event every time we get in it.  The boys love it and it has been fun.  There were many days that Matt and I both thought we might try to sell it early on with some of the hassles that came up, but now we're afraid if we do that, we'll just want to buy another one.  So we'll see where we are at by the end of the summer, but for now, we are enjoying it and Mom is loosening up a bit :)