bye scoot hello car!

Well, after buying a house 10 miles south of the hospital Paul works at, we found out that he will also be doing rotations at another hospital that is an additional 8 miles farther than the first one. Then we found out, he will be at that hospital a majority of the time he is in residency... Hmmm... The problem? He is a bike commuter and prefers his rides to be around 10 miles (or less).  Well, he has a scooter. Problem solved? Nope. It rains so much that on long rides like that it's actually a bit dangerous. In fact, he tipped it during a storm once and although he and the scooter were fine, it was a real eyeopener that he needed an actual vehicle.  He sold his last car before we left the country in 2009, so it's been a while. After much research, done by Paul, and my dad (the king of autotrader.com and consumer reports), and my step-dad (the I can fix anything guy), and a few other mechanically minded friends of Paul's, Paul found his new (old) car. He sold his scooter to help pay for the car, although we also had to do our first cash advance on the credit card to pay the rest (gasp!). Here is his last ride on the scooter.

The kids got to go for one last ride around the parking lot of the gas station we were meeting the scooter buyers at.  Which they were very excited about after finding out the crushing news of the scooter being sold.  The people buying the scooter were very nice and even paid more than what Paul bought it for, which was really nice for us.

Then we drove over to get his new car. The guy took pretty good care of it, but there were lots of little things that needed attention, so it spent a few days in the shop before it was ready to go.  But it passed inspections and works really well, especially for what Paul will need it for. The rain can't sting his face while he drives, he can go more than 35 miles an hour, and he won't have to figure out how to jump off of it as it tips in the middle of an intersection. Perfect!