[gforaker]

If this is your first boat, consider that you might want to consider it a "starter" boat and move up in a few years when you have more experience and know better what you want. Taking a wild guess from what you mentioned, I would reccomend a very good condition used Catalina 30 MkII. You should be able to get a very good one for under $40,000 (Maybe well under) and it is large enough and tough enough to safely care for the family and small enough to learn to handle with out too much stress. There are enough of them out there for you to have a lot of choices and you can sell if for not much of a loss in a few years.