We broke down and got one!

Well, to start I will say that after plopping down over $1000.00 on our minivan again, the other day, we decided to get a new mode of transportation. We found a Toyota Camry that looked good on the internet so we drove down to test drive it. We had decided to get a car verses a new minivan as the minivan we wanted would be out of our price range as we did not want to go into debt to pay for it. We had the cash and owned our current van so we wanted to buy the car outright.
We test drove the '98 Camry and I found it to be way too small for me. I have very long legs (nearly 6 feet tall!) and I currently have a severe back problem ( more on that later but I found out I have 5 herniated discs in my back. No wonder I am in so much pain!)I also knew I would miss the room of a minivan. So after we test drove it I told my husband that we could just keep the current van until the transmission drops, which sounded like it would very soon. Hey, it has 96,000 miles on it! And, it is a Ford. My husband told the sales guy that we were not going to take the Camry and as we were about to leave the guy said he had a couple Toyota Sienna's that we could test drive. My husband and I already talked about that and we decided that maybe later but NoT now. TO my surprise, my husband said ok to test driving on and we did. We both loved it and we were able to get a great deal and pay for it in CASH! Yup, we paid in cash. We did not go into debt over a Toyota Sienna! It has a few amenities and it is not all souped up but we like it. It is a nice color too. It is a dark blue with a dark grey panel along the bottom of the van. We both like that it has a CD player and a tape player. My last van only had a tape player and we had listened to all the Adventures in Odyssey tape a dozen times. I like that I can listen to the Anne of Green Gables CD with the kids, in the new van.
Now we only own Toyota's! We love the company as every Toyota we have ever owned we have loved and not had a problem. Why we ever got anything else is beyond me. We thought we could get a different model and hope it was as good but a cheaper price and we paid the price!
Anyway, more on the back issues later.