Upgrades

We finally did it. We bought a car from the 21st Century. Eric had fixed and patched and re-fixed our 98 Astro Van for the past 10 years. It was a great car and we have taken it on many happy adventures. But it was time to say Good-bye. We had intended to get a cross-over car like a Chevy Traverse or a Honda Pilot...but we made the mistake of taking our kids car shopping with us. You just can't beat the minivan for leg room and storage space. And when one of your kids is 6 ft...that really matters. So we are still a minivan family. Sigh. I was a little disappointed at first, but really it has been great. We settled on a 2008 Dodge Caravan and we absolutely love it...except for the color. Look in a parking lot, any parking lot, and you will see a dozen white minivans. Both Mason and Renae have already made the mistake of getting in to a stranger's minivan after school. Uggghhhhh.

We added these to the back window to help set our car apart from others. Fun...but we still need to figure out something for the front and side views to help us see our car better.

The kids favorite bell/whistle is the swivel seating. Although it quickly became apparent that not everyone liked traveling backward and not everyone was easy going about sharing their leg room with the person across from them. But still a cool feature. There is also a table that can pop up in the middle for eating or game playing. 

So Eric finished our lovely deck last summer. We have been meaning to get some seating out there for ever...but it just didn't happen.

The kids got resourceful at coming up with their own seating arrangements.This works...but took a fair amount of masking tape to keep the umbrella up.

Here was our first dinner on the deck with our new furniture...not even fully unwrapped. But we were so anxious to eat on our deck that we didn't care.

The next day...THE NEXT DAY...it snowed heavily. Ahhhhhh, and we thought winter was over.

The final product with the seat cushions and umbrella in place. We love it. It is like adding a new dining room to the house. We eat out here just about every night unless it is raining, windy, or cold (which it has unfortunately been almost every night the past 2 weeks.)