Goin' Crazy!

Josh and I went out on a date night as part of his birthday weekend celebration. It was a nice peaceful dinner! We had Brody with us but, he slept the entire time. It was great! On the way home, Josh brings up the subject of new cars, or a new to us car that is. He knows that I am always looking, wishing, dreaming and in pure envy of anyone that has a family and isn't driving a mini van. So, he said he really thinks that I should just go ahead and get the vehicle I really want! Shock barely describes the tip of the iceberg of my emotions the following 48 hours! His one condition was that what ever vehicle we get, we need to keep for at least 10 years. Talk about pressure to pick the perfect car! The pressure got to me and I finally gave up and said I would just keep the Honda and we could look again in 2-3 years. Well, my brain just wouldn't shut off the possibility of actually selling the van! I was pretty excited at the idea of ditching that thing. It's been great to us, and we have been all over the place in it. So, we came up with a plan that we would sell the van, and I would drive the Jeep while Josh is deployed, then when he got back we would look at vehicles once more. Josh spent one of his days off cleaning the Jeep inside and out to get it ready for the family. We even got all three car seats to fit, kind of anyway. It was all set up. I was even pretty excited to be driving my old car again! The weekend came and went and we really didn't go anywhere but, on the following Monday, we had to take a last minute trip out to Nellis. That same day it happened to be our warmest day this year! We hit the mid to high 90s! Well, after a trip to the pediatrician's office, the BX, the Commissary, lunch and then home, I was DONE with the Jeep! It was too cramped for Zach to buckle himself. Molly and Brody obviously couldn't do it all on their own and the auto start on the Jeep only seemed to work about half the time. We were all hot, tired and very cranky by the time we got home! So, later that evening I moved everything back into the van and just started dreaming once again of one day not having it!

As the days and weeks went on, Josh and I kept tossing around ideas of what to do. Sell the Jeep and just have the van, trade them both in, or keep them both. And remember, we also have the motorcycle that Josh drives 85% of the time to work. Plus, he will be leaving for 4-6 months and we know the motorcycle will just sit here while he is gone. We didn't want two vehicles to just sit for months. Then one evening, we decided we should actually go to a dealership and look at some vehicle options. I would LOVE a Tahoe or Yukon Hybrid but, those things are CRAZY expensive! I guess, that truly is a dream car for us! So, we were looking at the Mazda CX-9 and the GMC Acadia. I really liked both, but wasn't in love with either option. So then, we were back to thinking that we would wait and just look at the Tahoe/Yukons again in a few years. Which was fine, since we live in Las Vegas there isn't a need for a large, gas guzzling SUV.

But, I kept looking/dreaming and I kept going back to one vehicle that we ruled out earlier in our searching process, the Honda Pilot. We have some close friends that recently got one and I had been asking her all kinds of questions about it for a couple of weeks. Like, how well do the three car seats fit? Can the kids get in and out all by themselves? Is the gas mileage really as bad as some of the reviews claim? Finally, one afternoon I called her and asked her if I could just "play" with her car. I really am a hands on learner! She brought her Pilot over here and I took her car seats out, put ours in, had the kids climb in and out, and had Zachary buckle and unbuckle. I even took it for a little spin around the neighborhood and I was sold! It was great, not too big, not too small and I could easily fit all three kids across the center seat (praise the Lord it was wonderful!). So, then the hunt began for the perfect used car, which is really hard to find when you are as picky as I am! I truly am blessed that Josh handles/deals with my OCD so well. We also decided to put the van up for sale so if/when I found this great used car we could just go buy it. Well, as luck would have it, I found 2 cars in Vegas that I wanted Josh to go look at with me. So one evening, we headed out with all three kids to take a look. But we still hadn't sold our van. We had three families scheduled to come look at it on Saturday (this was on a Thursday). The first Pilot we saw was ok, nothing fancy, but really low miles and it would meet all of our basic needs. But, if this is a vehicle we plan on keeping basically forever, then it wasn't the one for us. So, we ventured to the next dealership to check out the other Pilot. We were hit with the typical used car salesman before we even had all the kids out of the van! I told him what vehicle we wanted to see and he showed it to us. Then it was time for him to try and seal the deal. He asked if he could appraise our van for a possible trade in and wanted to show us some real numbers. Josh and I agreed knowing the car was more than we wanted to spend. So, after the salesman did all his number crunching and sharing, he asked if we had a deal? I very bluntly said nope! The only way we would even consider buying that particular vehicle was if they dropped the price. I tossed out a low ball number and to our complete shock the dealership said yes! Holy cow, we were actually getting a new car! We didn't even bring our checkbook with us or a house key to get back into our house. We finally got home with a new car sometime around 10 that night. Josh "broke in" to our house and I was up all night with anxiety about how to get this thing registered in Alaska!

Not how we planned on spending our Thursday evening!