What a day!

Yesterday morning Vanessa hung out with me at home and we got ready for her big afternoon. Vanessa was going skating with Mary-Jane. First I wasn't quite sure what to do about lunch timing wise. Since I hadn't planned that with Mary-Jane, I thought I'd call her and let her know I was bringing lunch. I had cream cheese and cucumber in the fridge so we picked up some fresh bagels on the way. I called Mary-Jane to tell her we were bringing lunch. It was a nice treat that we all enjoyed.

I dropped Vanessa and Mary-Jane off at the lake along with a stroller and went to pick Eric up. I brought some lunch for him and cookies Mary-Jane had made. He took the afternoon off work and we went to go look at Dodge Grand Caravans. We went all the way out to Laval to go look at a 2007 model we had seen online. I had all the things we needed but for some reason I wasn't feeling to excited about it. It was a bad omen when the car won't start and then the brakes were really noisy when it was moved 10 feet. I know that's not major but still wasn't reassuring. The sales guy knew his stuff. He knew that we had another van in mind at another location and didn't want us to leave and be tempted so he asked us if mileage and age were big issues for us. Eric and I looked at each other thinking why not look at what he has to offer. He showed us a 2005 Dodge Grand Caravan with slightly higher mileage that was cheaper and had every feature you could possible add. It was love at first sight. It's in pristine condition and has been rust proofed. I'm ready to bet a retired man who loved his van had this before. It has buttons to not only lock but open the sliding doors and the tailgate. Stow and Go seats that were a must for us. DVD system with 2 wireless head sets, CD player with a tape deck. I am going to miss MP3 cd player but I'll get over it. It has electric seat adjustment for the driver. Very useful for a two driver vehicle with one of them being pregnant and can't reach under the seat. It's a "sport" model so it also has mag wheels and 4 disk brakes. Eric took it for a drive and it ran very smoothly. Oh and did I say it was a nice cranberry red?

Eric and I decided on the spot it was for us. It was a lot like when we bought our house. It was on the market and something fell through and we picked it up and made a possibly impulsive decision. I hope this car works out as well as the house did. We put a deposit on it and will pick it up this week-end.

We drove back to the shore and went to the one restaurant that we wouldn't think of bringing Vanessa and had a nice dinner. We picked Vanessa up at Mary-Jane's while they were just finishing theirs. Vanessa had an amazing time. She skated for a whole hour. They had skating "handles" you push along the ice. She was able to skate, fall and get herself up. I'm so glad Mary-Jane took video. Vanessa's a real natural. As you may have guessed, she was too excited to have a nap. When we got there, she was so buzzed she didn't know what to do with herself.

We left about 7 and she talked non stop in the car on the way to Grandma's and then it was silent. I couldn't believe it. She fell asleep. She even slept through picking Grandma up but woke up when we got her out of the car. She was not impressed we woke her up but was pretty happy to go back to bed.

What a fabulous day for everyone! I'm so glad to be getting a car so Vanessa and Mary-Jane can have more fun days together.

P.S. I didn't get any van pictures or skating pictures. I will be posting van pictures once we pick it up.