Job Change, New Van, and More

In addition to dealing with the girls being sick over the past couple of weeks, Robert has also been in the midst of a job change. Last Monday was actually his last day at his old job and today is his first day at his new job. It's a very similar position to what he had - just with a different company. He'll still work out of the house and have a territory here in our part of the state. His territory is actually a little bit smaller! One of the differences with this job that affected us was their company car policy. In Robert's previous job, the company provided a car for him to drive. Everything was taken care of - cost of gas, maintenance, insurance, tags, etc. This new job is a bit different. Instead of providing a company car, they give you a monthly car allowance and pay for your business mileage. It probably all works out about the same - just a different business policy. Anyway, when Robert decided to accept this new job, we pretty much had to immediately go out and get a new car since he would be turning in his company car when he left his old job. And since the company is paying an allowance, they do have some criteria - like the car cannot be older than 4 years old in whatever calendar year you're in. For example, since it's 2008 he must drive a 2004 or newer car. If he were to get a 2004 car to drive this year, then he'd have to get a newer car for 2009 because of the 4-year or newer requirement. We discussed what to do, but ultimately decided to go with a new car so that he can drive it for 4 years. After 4 years, I'll start driving it and he'll get another new car. Our philosophy is that basically we'll be letting the company buy all of our cars from now on, and I'll just take Robert's leftovers!! Anyway, since our plan is for me to get the new car in 4 years, we wanted something that I would want to drive in 4 years, taking into account the girls and their activities, etc. So guess what? We bought another Nissan Quest van!!! So now we have matching vans!!! Mine is blue and his is gray!!! It brings back memories of earlier in our marriage when we both had Nissan Sentras - mine was blue and his was gray!!!! It's kind of funny, but hey - we like our current van so why not get something that we already know we like!!! I'm thinking that Nissan needs to use us in one of their commercials or something!!! HaHa!!!