Minivan Mom

As the reality of having 3 kids gets closer we have a list of items to make sure happen before baby arrives.  The big one on our list was to sell the Escape and purchase a minivan for our family.  We both grew up with minivans and I had no desire to drive a monstrosity of a SUV so a minivan was an easy choice for us.  The more difficult choice was to sell our Escape on our own, to trade it in, and the best place/deal to get a minivan.

We have been blessed with so many wonderful people in our Sunday School class, one of whom sells new/used cars. We had been talking with him for a couple of weeks about a Honda Odyssey that was on the lot and we decided to go take it for a test drive.  We took both kids with us knowing that if they started to misbehave or if it was too much to handle with them we would walk out the door and try again another time. 

The kids were great the whole time and if you have ever bought a car you know it is not a quick process!  We were able to get a good trade in value for the Escape, thus eliminating the headache of trying to sell it ourselves.  All in all we are very happy with our new ride and the kids love all the space and built in DVD player with bluetooth headphones! Jay loves the endless amount of buttons and the choices of personalization that you can set in the computer system. 

We used portable DVD players, apps on cell phones and snacks to keep everyone appeased during the long paperwork process at the car dealership.  I am not sure how parents handled that before there were phones!

The kids were checking it out before the test drive (don't worry we put in their car seats!).  This is the middle row of seats and Charlotte is sitting in the "plus 1 seat".  We have taken that out so that the back seat is easily accessible, but technically we can fit 8 people in the car. 

Charlotte's favorite spot is the very back seat.  She loves to play back there and hide!

This was also the kids' first experience with headphones.  Trey cracks us up singing along with the music and DVDs at an extremely high volume.  He has no clue how loud his voice sounds to us since we aren't wearing headphones.  We have set the headphones so they know it can't go higher than the level 6 or the headphones get taken away. 

I can see many more quiet road trips in our future with the DVD player and head phones!

Charlotte thought the van made a perfect napping place. 

 We have had the van for a couple of weeks now and still really love it.  I like the larger gas tank so I am not having to go fill up more than once a week if I go into town.  The kids got really muddy when we were out last weekend so we just took them to the backseat and they had plenty of space to change.  We are hoping this Honda Odyssey lasts our family for many years to come!