A Proud Member of the Mom's Mini Van Brigade Once Again!!

So our van died. It's died before but this time it died for good. We said we would drive it into the ground and we did exactly that!!

In 2001, with a toddler and a brand new baby Maia, we reluctantly bought our 1st "family" vehicle. I'll admit it was hard for me to give up my cute little car. Man I LOVED that car. But, it was also really really exciting to be joining the BIG TIME moms who were all driving mini vans around town. Made me feel like a true, authentic mommy or something!! Like now I was a part of the inner circle of a secret club:)

For the most part the van was really good to us. It safely toted my babies to and from countless activities and survived an untold number of road trips. It rallied through not one, but two accidents!! It never even complained when my kids spilled Happy Meal sodas or lost millions of french fries down into it's seats:) It may have groaned a bit the umpteenth time that Andy dumped coffee all over the driver's seat though:)

The poor van (we should've named it) did start having problems in the last few years. The AC went out and then the heat followed suit. The exhaust system was starting to become a real problem. When Andy scored a brand new cr-v as a benefit to his job, he was nice enough to hand the keys over to me!! He wanted the kids and me to be in a reliable vehicle so he started using the van as a work car. I'll admit I was GIDDY inside at the thought of driving a cute little SUV!! Eight years after I was sooooo excited to be driving around town in a mom mobile...I was ecstatic to be ditching it:) I no longer wanted the status symbol that it brought with it. Kind of like how during my 1st pregnancy I was overly eager to start wearing maternity clothes, but by my 3rd pregnancy I was THA-RILLED that I didn't HAVE to wear maternity clothes until 7 months into the pregnancy.

So last week the transmission went out on the van:( And we had a BIG decision to make. Did we want to put a significant amount of money into a 1997 vehicle with over 180,000 miles on it or should we finally lay our poor, overworked van to rest? In the end we decided that the van was simply not worth putting any more money into. So we started car shopping!

Turns out that Andy and I had VERY different ideas of what we needed in a family vehicle. As much as I loved driving the cr-v, I knew that my family wasn't fitting very comfortably in it. The kids were smooshed in the backseat! And let's be honest here...they're only getting bigger!! Plus, we couldn't take their friends with us when we went somewhere fun. Not to mention our 2 very large dogs. Sometimes we would have to drive 2 vehicles to get everyone to and fro. Which is ridiculous. I KNEW we needed a 7 passenger vehicle. Andy, on the other hand, ONLY wanted to look at SUV's. Which, I honestly would've been thrilled with...but I knew there was NO WAY we could afford a 7 passenger SUV. Neither the payment or the gas!! When I pointed this fact out to Andy he decided that we would just buy a 5 seater SUV. Well, I wasn't going for that and I fought pretty hard for a van. Who woulda thought right? That me, who was so excited to be rid of my original mommobile, would be fighting so hard to buy a new one? Andy was standing his ground pretty firmly. Now,  I don't usually give Andy a hard time about things like this, but this time I was standing just firmly as he was!!

So who do you think won?!?! I guess I sorta gave it away in the title huh? But yep, I won. Thanks to Johnny, at Ricart's used car factory, I am now the proud owner of a *new to me* Kia Sedona!! Andy has insisted that he won't drive it...but we all know that he will:) In fact, he already has!! He drove it home from the car lot while I followed behind in the cr-v. Even he had to admit that it was so nice for the kids to be able to spread out a bit :) Speaking of the kids...they are in LOVE with our new van!! They have each staked their claim to their new seats!!

The kids were excited when I cut and added our little stick figure family to the back window. I'm pretty sure Andy is gonna HATE it:) It will officially make us "that" annoying family:) But I don't care...I think they're cute!! Except that butterfly that's bigger than my girl's head. That probably needs to go:)

So there ya have it. My kid's are only gonna be young for so long. I'll proudly drive an "uncool" minivan until they're all grown and gone:( And I'll be thankful every minute for the time I have with them. It's a privilege to be part of the Mom's Mini Van Brigade!!