We didn't do much in our last week in Perth - the weather was so windy and wet and cold, so most of our time was spent inside. Dad's last week of training went really well and the guys were quite happy with the instructing Dad gave. One of the guys even gave Dad and Siri a thank you card along with a $40. gift card to a local restaurant in Perth. Siri wasn't interested in going to the restaurant and so told Dad to just go ahead and use it. We decided to go that day for lunch since we were leaving on Saturday and already had plans for the Friday. It turned out that the restaurant was situated in a strip mall where you had to pay to park - we had to pay $7. for two hours - which we couldn't believe people were actually willing to do. There weren't any other parking places even close to the restaurant, so we ended up just paying it. We chose a steak sandwich and wagyu beef burger and had a mud cake for dessert. The prices were too high for the food we had (although it tasted good), so we were glad that we had the $40 gift card (which we had to add onto to pay for the bill).
On Friday, we got together with Rob and Rosalea again - this time, we went out for lunch with them to a Chinese restaurant. It was so nice to get together with them again and the food was really delicious there - that restaurant is definitely on our 'to visit again' list. We flew to Brisbane on the Saturday and stayed overnight in a hotel - then, we flew back to Hervey Bay last Sunday night. It was nice to be home! :-)
This week has been busy, busy, busy - this always happens when we get back home and aren't going to be back for long (the break this time is twelve days). The first part of the week was filled with a facial appointment, a tax appointment and a chiropractor's appointment. On Wednesday, we drove to Brisbane. Our first stop was to Dad's work so he could drop off the Perth keys and catch up with everyone down there. Next stop, was to drop our stuff at a hotel before we headed off to the Temple. We love going to the Temple - it is so peaceful inside. I wish that we could go more often.
On Thursday, we went to the Caravan and Camping Show in Brisbane. Dad is chomping at the bit to buy the camper trailer and so we wanted to look again into buying one. Jayco had all of their camping trailers on display and so we checked out the 'Swan' again - it's such a great trailer and has almost everything we want in it. One of its best features is that is has a full couch in it which will be great when we are camping on long trips.
We began talking with one of their salespeople and told her that we weren't sure if our Toyota Corolla would be strong enough to pull the Swan - one salesperson we had spoken to previously had said it would be okay and another had said it would be too heavy. When the salesperson asked her boss about it, she came back and told us that they wouldn't sell it to us because it would be just over the limit if it was fully-loaded. Dad was so disappointed. We considered buying a lighter trailer which our Toyota Corolla could pull, but after checking out all the options, decided that we really wanted the 'Swan'. I told Dad that we would just have to go and buy a new car first so that we could pull the trailer without any issues.
When we got home that night, Dad reviewed the specs for the Toyota Aurion which he had determined would be the best car to tow the trailer. I checked out redbook.com.au which is a website which lists a price range of what a car should be worth and I checked out some private sales to see what we could get if we tried to sell the car privately. I also checked out the price of what a new one would cost. So, we had a really good idea of the price we would feel comfortable in paying for a new car. We also said a prayer that night that if we were meant to buy a new car that we would get a good deal on the trade-in.
So, on Friday, we went down to the Toyota dealer in town to talk with someone about a new car. We asked for the salesman who had sold us the Corolla, but he had moved on, so we ended up with another sales guy who turned out to be really good. Dad told him which vehicle we wanted to buy and they 'just happened' to have one as a demo model on the lot which 'just happened' to be the colour Dad wanted. We had a good look at the car and then talked with our salesman, David, about the features of this particular car. We then went and spoke with the sales manager about purchasing the car. He asked a number of questions about price to which I could speak really well to - I think he might have been a bit surprised that a woman knew so much about what the car was worth and the worth of the trade-in we would be making. :-) The manager asked us what we were willing to pay for it and I laughed at him thinking he was kidding (he wasn't), so I said about $2,500 less than what Dad and I had thought we would be happy in paying. He thought for a second, but then said that he thought he wouldn't be able to do it, but that he might be able to do $1,500 more IF the used car salesperson agreed at how much our Corolla was worth (based on what I told him we thought it was worth). He asked us if he could sell it for the price he quoted, would we commit to buying it. I told him that Dad and I always took overnight to think before we made any big purchases, but we would go outside and talk about it.
Outside we talked about how the reason we took overnight to talk about big purchases was because we wanted to pray about it and also to research about it before we bought. We had already done this and knew we were getting a good deal on the exact car we wanted, so we agreed that we would commit to buying it that day. When we went back to tell the manager that we were ready to buy the car, he said he had to go and speak to the used car guy (who had inspected our Corolla in the meantime) to see what he thought they should offer as a trade-in price. When he came back, he said that he couldn't sell the car to us for the price he quoted, but could for $400. more. I said that Dad and I would go outside again and talk about the new price. We decided that the price was still way less than what we had come prepared to pay and the price we got for the trade-in was $600. above what we thought we would get for it, so we decided to go for it. We went for a test drive while the paperwork was drawn up. Dad loved driving the car - when we finished the test drive and David asked Dad how he liked driving it, Dad's grin was like that of the Cheshire cat. :-) He loved it! :-) We were both so happy and felt so blessed at how wonderful everything turned out. The next step is to buy a new trailer - we are going to look at the Jayco dealer when we are down in Melbourne (which we fly to on Friday).
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