Eve

We have always planned on acquiring a second vehicle by the time Jay starts middle school, or fall of 2020. We have always planned on saving up for the car and then buying it outright. We thought we'd be happy to wait until summer of 2020 to get the second car, but then a few months ago Jeff got a church calling that requires him to stay after church on Sundays (financial clerk). Bumming rides off of people (no matter how kind and willing they are) gets old really fast as an adult. So we moved up the timetable, buckled down on our savings, and decided to get the car in December. Jeff has been researching electric cars for the past year, so he knew exactly what he wanted. A few weeks ago in preparation for our December car purchase, he reached out to a dealership in the tri cities, letting them know what he was looking for. Things were moving along right on schedule.


Last Wednesday (Nov. 13th), Jeff had a dentist appointment. He lined up a substitute teacher for 4th and 5th periods at school so he would have time to walk to and from the dentist office as well as enough time for however long the appointment lasted. Well, Jeff recently started using an electric toothbrush at home so his dental cleaning lasted a mere 20 minutes. Suddenly his afternoon opened up wide. Suddenly he was done waiting to get a second vehicle. He walked a mile from the dentist and met me at Amber's preschool, where we dropped her off and decided to go to the tri cities (45 minutes away) to look at a car (the dealer had emailed him about this recently acquired car that very morning). Since Amber's preschool is only 2.5 hours long, and since we had to go home for food before driving to the tri cities, we were left with just enough time for me to drop him off at the dealership and drive straight back to pick up Amber. This was a gamble because what if he didn't want to buy the car? Then I'd have to drive all the way back to the tri cities to pick him up!

I stayed just long enough to look at the car with Jeff, then he left with the salesman for a test drive while I drove back to Sunnyside to pick up Amber. Partway through my 45 minute drive home, Jeff called and said he was buying the car. The paperwork ended up making it so the first payment would be due in January. So our plans to pay in full were still on track. It was the smoothest, fastest large purchase we have ever made! Three hours after I dropped Jeff off at the dealership, he was home with his new car. He barely made the 45 minute drive on the remaining charge in the car's battery (it was not fully charged when he left the dealership). He had only 5% battery power left when he pulled into our driveway, and he had to get off the interstate and drive on a slower road to conserve battery power, but he made it home!

It's a 2016 Nissan Leaf, and we named it Eve because it's our first EV (electric vehicle). Zero gas, zero combustion at all, so also no oil changes and very little maintenance. It only drives about 70 miles max between battery charges, though, so it's mostly for in town use--just what we wanted.

I've been waiting to do this post until I take at least one more picture of Eve, but since Jeff is only home during daylight for such a short time each day pictures of cars are not high on my priority list. So this is the only picture, taken in the gray early morning light on Thursday, November 14th--the first day Jeff drove his own car to work, ever. Eve has a hatch back type trunk and is quite roomy inside. The car is so quiet, I can't ever tell if it is on or not! Jeff loves it. 

We lived almost 13 years as a one car family, but it was time for a change. Life feels shockingly decadent.