Friday, March 5, 2010

And so..

Again, a month goes by before I've even noticed it, yikes! So here is what is going on.

We purchased a minivan. Yes a minivan. When we had discussed the eventuality of needing a second vehicle Zippercow was set against a minivan. He had grand ideas for medium sized SUVs and had no desire to be one of THOSE people who drove minivans. I personally never minded, but since he didn't want one I went along with the other options he had researched. And as we would soon discover those other options were at the high end of what we could afford and we were trying REALLY hard to keep the payments close to what we were paying for the Mazda (which is now paid off, hurray!). 066 So we started looking into the smaller SUVs with third row seating. Now I'm sure you are thinking "crazy lady you are only going to have two kids why on earth would you need a third row?!" and as I've had to explain a couple times,  I watch my niece during the week as well so once Little Moo starts preschool (not to mention appointments and now we will actually be able to go to the park!)  I will need to have room for three (yes three) car seats. Anyone who has had the pleasure of strapping the behemoths into a car will tell you, you can never get more than two into a backseat safely. Anyhow,022back to how we ended up with a minivan. We looked into smaller SUVs with third rows. Smaller is an understatement, cramped and uncomfortable is more like it. We did a lot of looking online and just were not finding what we needed so we went to a couple dealerships. First I must say that I hate working with salesman more than..well anything. The first place we went she took down all the things we were looking for, high on our list of priorities was price, and though we said it repeatedly she didn't ask what our price range was . After all the info she gathered she brought around a vehicle. It was not ANY of the vehicles we discussed and was about twice what we were willing to spend. She was excited and had it ready for a test drive. I took one look at the inside and new it was out of our price range. I wouldn't even get in, which I'm sure disappointed her. I know how it works, they hope you love it enough that you'll find a way to afford it. We aren't those kind of people. We do a lot of research, we always sleep on our decisions, and the more pressured we feel, the less likely we are to just leave, which I have done before. We left and went to another car lot. The salesman was nice and while he still didn't show us anything we wanted to see he paid attention to what we wanted to pay and that we needed it for a family. He pointed out how difficult it is to buckle children into the smaller SUVs because you have to fold the seat down to get to the back row, which for me would mean taking the seat out or climbing over. Yikes! He did pull around a 2008 Kia Sedona that was perfectly priced and we fell in love. So roomy, no climbing over things, space for the stroller or groceries behind the third row..lets just say I was sold. And surprisingly so was Zippercow! But since we had not researched this vehicle we "slept on it" did some research and discovered that it is quite safe and reliable. So now our driveway houses another vehicle. One of which excites Little Moo so much that he asks multiple times a day if we are going anywhere, apparently he was sold as well!

063 Other than the purchase of the van we are still slowly working on making way for baby. Mostly we are waiting for the temps to be steadily about 10 degrees warmer so we can open windows and paint. The weather has been so beautiful that everyone around here has just been itching to work in the yard, but it isn't quite warm enough yet. We are also trying to patiently await the ultra sound that will hopefully tell us the gender of our little baby (who has been moving all over the place!). March 18! We are counting down the days, hopefully the baby will cooperate!

So that is what has been going on, but I'm sure I will think of other things. Mostly I'm just enjoying the magic of the van, but more on that later!