Hellooooo Lover!!!

Big big news in our family! We are now a minivan owning/ driving/ loving family!!! Whoo hoo! 

Two weeks ago Ben & I bit the bullet and bought our new family car. We got the 2012 Honda Odyssey Touring and I LOVE it. 

First of all let me just tell you we have been searching for our "family car" for months now. We've  known since charley's conception that we would have to have a larger vehicle before he was born. We didn't own a car that would fit 3 car seats. Ben & I have done so much research online, talked to friends and family, searched and searched and searched until we narrowed it down to which vehicles we were actually considering. Ben realllllly tried to convince me that I wanted a suburban but unfortunately that was not what I really wanted. I wanted the ultimate MOM car with sliding doors and remote controlled doors/ hatches. I think Ben had a hang up about just the concept of a "minivan" and the fact that we are still in our 20's. I had NO such hang up. If it would make my life easier I would cut all my hair off, dye it grey and call myself a granny. I do not care if owning a minivan ages me beyond my 28 years. 

So I said all that to say we narrowed it down to yes we wanted a minivan and we really preferred the honda for its features and of course the longevity you get with honda cars. After that it was on to the dealerships to find OUR car. This was an amazing experience. Ben has very very little time off work so when he did we HAD to go look at cars, whether we had babysitters or not, whether it was raining or not. Didn't matter. So as it turned out the few times that we actually made it out to the dealerships to look at vans/ test drive/ talk numbers we had the kids with us. Which I think is kind of like the olympics of car buying, can you simultaneously juggle 2 kids, act like you know what you're talking about and haggle prices while snacks are being thrown and aiden is saying over and over again "I love that car, let's take it home today. Can we mom? Can we take it home?" Man talk about an easy sell. Aiden fell in love with every van we looked at. Sales people loved him. 

The 1st dealership we spent a considerable amount of time at, I swear I knew more about the honda odyssey than the sales people (all that research!) but other than their lack of knowledge about the van, they also wouldn't meet our price so we left. The day we actually bought the van I felt like a reality TV crew should be filming the crazyness of this process...it was storming HARD in DFW. Pouring rain, thunder, lightning, but hey we only got X amount of time so the 4 of us loaded up to go look at vans in Irving, in a storm, with 1 small polka dot umbrella. Believe it or not the dealership was completely empty on this particular stormy saturday which worked out better for us anyways. We quickly found the van we wanted to negotiate about. After all the research and being in and out of different models at other dealerships, it wasn't hard to pinpoint which one we were interested in. The sales people at this dealership (David Mcdavid of irving, if you're looking) were awesome!! They pulled the vans under a covered area for us to look at and get in & out of. They gave our kids fresh popped popcorn and brought out kids toys from their "kids area" while we chatted numbers and my favorite part was that after 1 back and forth on the figures, the sales guy brought out the "wizard behind the curtain" and had him deal directly with us which cut down on a lot of the back and forth. They made us what we thought was a very fair deal and one we were happy with and so we signed on the dotted line and walked away with our family of 5 minivan!!! This was a little bit of a surreal adult moment for ben & I. Buying our 1st brand spanking new car by ourselves. Obviously we've bought 2 houses as adults now but this was our 1st new car purchase. 

It's a smoky charcoal grey color and it is awesome!!! 

....yes we were there till 9pm getting everything squared away, still with the 2 kids in the middle of a huge storm. Awesome experience. 

Like I said we ended up getting the TOURING edition which is equipped with leather interior, navigation, back up camera, DVD, automatic lift gate, and some other things but those are the biggies that make it so awesome for us! 

Front console

 Middle row with the middle seat still installed. I love this model especially because not only does the middle seat come out and you can move the captains chairs from side to side (You've been able to do that in the odyssey for years) but new is that this middle seat in our model moves FRONT TO BACK. Like it will slide up 5 inches or slide back 5 inches so that is no longer a part of either bench allowing you to fit 3 car seats in the middle row. Awesome! 

 Back row which is a magic row that collapses all the way down with a pull of a string. You don't have to fold anything, remove anything. Nothing. Just pull string & it collapses all the way down. 

 These are stock photos and not our van but this is with all the seats collapsed how much cargo room the van has. 

 And how much is there with all the seats still in. SOOOOO awesome. 

And obviously this is not us but look at all the people you can fit!!! I think maybe we'll have some more kids now! (NOT!!!) But we could! :)

So anyways I have been driving my van for about 2 weeks now and I absolutely love it. Call me lazy but being able to open the doors and lift gate before I get to the van is so huge for getting us in/ out of the car. I love love having the back up camera/ navigation and the DVD player is awesome for going distances. Really cuts down on the amount of questions I'm asked in the car but aiden is still learning that we're only gonna watch a DVD when we are going far, like more than 30 minutes. I don't want to start this watching videos just to run around town. 

All in all, great-only slightly crazy experience. Very happy with our purchase and if you're thinking of taking the plunge on a family vehicle, I highly recommend the honda odyssey! Even ben has come around to thinking the van is awesome and as of my last check, I'm still as cool as I always was (maybe even cooler!!) and I'm still 28, not 45! :)