MY new toy!

I never get toys.
Well, I can’t say never – I did get the specific breed of cat I wanted, and I have a nice sewing machine, and a serger I have yet to understand how to use. Oh, and I did get a 4-wheeler when I was pregnant with Sam. But being pregnant, as I usually am, I haven’t been able to use it much.
Anyway, so we had to get this really large van in June because our Suburban’s transmission ate itself twice the week we were supposed to be moving across the country. Our family of almost 9 wouldn’t have fit in it anymore after January anyway so I now have a 12 passenger Chevy Express family van. My husband has a Harley which pays for itself in gas because it is his daily driver. But, whenever I go anywhere, kids or no kids, I have to take this massive bus. It is a nice, comfortable, 2008 van and I give thanks to God for it but taking it for a quick trip to CVS or Walmart is a bit overkill. Plus, it is a guzzler.
So, I told my husband that if we could find a nice, smaller, older but reliable vehicle that wouldn’t totally break our budget I would like to get it to avoid driving Zena Warrior Van everywhere I go. He jumped right into looking for a vehicle for me. Actually, he started looking for a vehicle for himself that he could buy for me so he could have one but we got it because I wanted it. Make sense? That is actually the same way we got my 4-wheeler.
I let him do the searching while I sat back and watched, sticking my 2 cents in when it was needed. I wanted him to have fun with it – he loves buying things that make engine noises.

In the process of looking we discussed certain things. I have always wanted an older vehicle project for the kids. Something that ran well but had potential to be better. We decided that using an older vehicle as homeschooling curriculum would make us both feel better about the purchase. Ryan is very mechanically inclined; working on his 2500 acre family farm, then as nuclear mechanic in the Navy has given him a fairly decent knowledge of how to make things go and he is an excellent teacher.

After much consideration we decided to go ahead and buy this:

This is my 1980 Jeep CJ5. It runs like a champ and has potential for absolute greatness. Ryan and I have wanted a CJ for about 6 years but we knew that a toy like that wasn’t in our financial best interest. Plus, CJs aren’t all that easy to come by, as we found out, and when you do find one it is an expensive piece. We got this one for a steal! It was half the price of the other CJs out there and it is in better mechanical condition than most of them. The body is in pretty good shape but we have to get a soft top for it – the original top was damaged.

I love it! Now, if only the rain would stop so I can take it out and learn how to drive it. It has been too many years since I have driven a stick shift.

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