Now introducing... Buttercup!

We lived here for a few weeks before we got around to buying a car. And really, during those two weeks, the only thing we NEEDED a car for was going to church on Sunday. Otherwise our little neighborhood has everything within walking distance, which is awesome.
We ended up getting a 2010 Toyota Rav4. It looks basically like this beauty I found on the internet:

Exciting, huh!

Originally, the plan was to buy a blue Subaru Forester. They have a BEAUTIFUL color of blue right now, which is obviously the first thing I look at when looking at cars. (My brother, Erik, is a mechanic. If he reads this, I'm not sure he'll make it this far without his eyes rolling practically out of his head. I like the pretty blue cars! Ha ha ha!)

But when you're buying used, you don't always get to choose the color, so we got this brown color, which they call "pyrite." I call it "blah." The interior is made of shopping-bag textured fabric (you know those ones you can buy at check-out for $1) in a lovely Reese's-Peanut-Butter-Cup-esque brown and black. It is for that reason that we have named our car Buttercup. 

I didn't realize it at the time, but having a car named Buttercup is REALLY CUTE, especially when you have two daughters, a toddler and a preschooler, talking about her by name. When we go by the garage, Penny will point out, "That's where Buttercup lives." And I decided the windshield shades are Buttercup's sunglasses. When we go to the car, I just have to tell the girls, "Let's go see Buttercup," and they're excited about getting their shoes on and out the door. And it's just insanely cute to hear them say the word, Buttercup.

We wanted to get something with a higher lift than a sedan or a mini-van, in case we encounter bad roads or decide to go camping in Brazil. We also decided to get a Rav4 with the optional 3rd row of seating. This way, when people come to visit us in Brazil (hint, hint!), we'll have room for more than just our little family. That narrowed our search quite a bit, and by the time we bought it, the decision was pretty easy. Once we get to the end of our tour in Brazil, we're thinking we'll probably sell it there (we hear you can sell it there for about what you payed for it in the US), then get a new one again when we get to DC next time.

So that's the story of how Buttercup came to join our family's adventure.