Car buying!

Car buying was not in our plans when we moved here.  We thought we were good to go with our  2011 Honda Pilot.  Fairly new, good condition, and it's a Honda.  A brand that we thought would be easily maintained abroad.  Then we found out that there aren't any Honda dealerships in Luanda, and that the car of choice there seems to be Toyota.  Anything Toyota.  Cars are super expensive there, meaning easily selling for $100,000.   So we needed to buy the car here.  We decided to buy it new because it will resell in Angola just fine for what we bought it for.  You're not allowed to make a profit off the sale of your car though.  If you do, you have to donate the money to charity.  :)

Something that we didn't know before we got here, is that a lot of people buy a car from another embassy worker that is leaving the post that they are going to, and then they turn around and sell the car to another incoming worker before they leave the post as well.  The government won't pay for the return trip of your car back to D.C.   So if you don't sell your car, it is shipped to Belgium where it sits in storage, while you come back to D.C. for possible lengthy language training, and all the while, you are making car payments on it.  Financially, selling the car before leaving post seems like the smart thing to do.  :)  There are no cars at our post right now that are available to buy, so it made sense just to buy one here and ship it.  Unfortunately, that means that we'll be without a car for 4-6 months while we're there.  It all works out somehow though because the embassy does a "motor pool" where you can get rides to do your grocery shopping, etc. 

So here are pictures representing the final hours of the car buying.  We spent three days test driving, hunting, etc. and then finally decided on the Toyota 4Runner.  We bought McDonalds and then headed over to sign papers at the Toyota dealership.  We had been really considering the FJ Cruiser because of it's ability to handle rough roads which we will have in Africa.  It's a car that we would probably never buy again.  It was so fun to drive!  However, after much deliberation, we decided that we should get the 4Runner because we could get a third row of seating so the kids don't always have to sit right next to each other, and we could also have room for anyone that came all the way to Africa to visit.  :)

A random hugging moment when the girls were showing their pictures they had drawn for each other.  Had to capture it on camera so I could show it to them the next time they fought.  :)

Lots of drawing to keep busy...

Finally getting the plates to put on the car.  The kids had to watch everything!

Here we are with Patrick Pluto, our car salesman at Koons Toyota in Tyson's Corner, and the new car.  Seriously the greatest guy--super helpful, no pressure, and just honestly tried to make sure we were happy (with benefits of course).  We didn't want to forget him!

We got the pic of us with the new car, but Thomas started to cry when he realized that the Honda was gone.  We traded it in, so they moved it to the back lot while we were doing the paperwork.  His sentimental tears were enough to humor his request of getting a picture of the Honda with the Utah plates we had on the car.  Of course he still has the plates.  :)

Goodbye Honda.  Funny how it's hard to say goodbye to cars.  There are so many memories that are associated with them though..it's hard to move on.  We tried to reassure the kids that the Toyota is going to become their next favorite car because of its associations with Angola and the fun we will have there.  Besides, it looks like we're going to be changing out our cars a lot, so this is just the beginning of goodbyes.  :)