I love it!
Me either! Right now I'm having second, third and fourth thoughts about the Rav4 I loved so much when I got it. It was great when the handle on Kendra's wheelchair folded down, but now with the double handles on the back they are fixed, making the wheelchair just barely small enough to get into the back hatch area. Oh, sure we can take the wheels off the chair and get it in, but who the heck wants to stand outside when it's 10 below zero with 40 mph winds and do that? Ken and I are kicking around getting a Sienna....we loved ours and wouldn't mind having another. But never in my life have I traded in a car that wasn't paid for for another car...I don't even know how that works!
The kids drive a beat up old Pontiac van. Again, chair fit well before but not so much now, and that car won't get them from one point to another very well anyway. It's past time for a new and slighter bigger car for them, but they can't afford it. They aren't even living from paycheck to paycheck - more like almost paycheck to almost paycheck. And having just bought the house, it'll take awhile before their credit rebounds enough even if they could afford the additional payments, down payment, insurance and ridiculous Wyoming taxes on a vehicle. Plates are super expensive too - $420.00 for the Rav this year. But our backs are hosed from trying to get Kendra in and out - especially Jenny's back. Last doctor's appointment our doctor recommended that we try a GoFundMe account and try to mitigate the cost of an accessible vehicle for the kids, just to try to save Jen's back a bit. But I dunno, those things seem a little iffy to me, although I did contribute to Ashley's when she was diagnosed with leukemia and to Rachel's too when they had one for her. Just not sure if we'd get enough to really do anything, and end up right back where we are. We've looked into grants and they don't qualify for anything there. Kendra's Medicaid waiver doesn't help either.
They absolutely need a vehicle that will get them safely to Denver and back, with room for the wheelchair and luggage and people. Ideally one of those Siennas with the 90 degree seat would be in the budget - it has a door that swivels 90 degrees, then lowers to the ground with the touch of a button so we can just transition from wheelchair to carseat, buckle her in, raise the seat back up and turn it into position again. But yeah, they are expensive as all get out.
) to say that it's all been done to an acceptable standard etc. We were expecting the 'Code of Compliance Certificate' to maybe be around $500. We weren't quite expecting almost $1000!
