So, yeah, we bought a car....

Wednesday was an exciting and very long day in the Cook household. Brigham and I bought a car for him. Before telling you all about Brigham's new wheels, I feel, once again, that a little background information is necessary.

Shortly after we were married 12+ years ago, we found ourselves in the situation where we needed a car. The first car we bought together was a used Saturn SL1 with no options, though it did have a tape deck. Brigham still had several years left of college and I was finishing up a graduate degree. It fit the budget and, though not fancy by any means, it was dependable, got good gas mileage and was cheap to insure. It was our main (and really only unless you count motorcycles) form of transportation through our college years and our entire stay in the great state of Colorado.

Shortly after Spencer (our second son) was born, we moved to Ohio and Brigham was contracting on a military base where I could not easily drop him off for work on days that I needed the car. We decided that it was time to buy a second car. Since buying our first home in Colorado, we had diligently been saving to buy a car. The problem was that the car we had been saving for was no longer practical for our family. After a few late night "discussions" and a lot of convincing on my part, our family purchased a minivan, which, for the record, was not my husband's idea of glamorous. This purchase came with great promises for the day when the Saturn died.

Well for some time now, the Saturn has been showing signs of its impending demise. The "check engine" light has been on for over a year and refuses to go off no matter how many times we check the engine. The car amazingly does not leak oil, but still needs to be regularly filled for some reason. The tires are bald. There is a definite rust problem (who knew that Saturns could rust?). The emergency brake has to be manually held up to work, which makes parking an adventure. So, you get the picture, right?

Finally, a few weeks ago, Brigham informed me that we either needed to put a large amount of money into the Saturn or we would need to replace it before the ice in Kentucky season started up. The main requirement of this new car was that it have a convertible top (a promise that secured the minivan purchase). It also must be dependable and safe. I had a few requirements as well, even though I didn't plan to be driving the car very often. I needed it to have a back seat for days when Brigham had to help with the transporting of boys and I didn't want to paying some ludicrous amount to insure impracticality. So, with this in mind, we went car shopping.

I'll spare you the details of the various cars we looked at over the last week. Let's just say that finding sporty and fun for a 6'4" man isn't as easy as it might first appear. Most of the cars fit him just fine with the top down - it was the top up thing that caused the problem. I also started to have my concerns about the convertible concept. Some of my students shared with me the ease of breaking into a convertible and divulged that the cost of insuring and driving one to be higher than what I wanted to deal with. I actually spent a good deal of the day last Saturday convincing my husband that this just wasn't the way to go.

Then, we found the Volvo C70. It is a hard top convertible, which means that when the top is up, it takes more than a pocket knife to break into the car. It had the required back seat and every safety feature in the book, which means that the insurance costs on it are unbelievably low. I about fell over when we were quoted $562 for the annual (yes, that's the whole year) premium. That's less than $50 a month on a new car with full coverage. So, after some consideration we bought the car.

I've since been informed that they are not cheap cars to fix. We've never owned a European car and we might even have to outsource the oil changes. But, my sweet husband seems quite happy with the vehicle and it has been a long time in coming. Now, I will attempt to add a picture to my blog and I expect you all to be very impressed with my new skill.