We said we would never do it

When Jon and I got married we said that we would never buy a minivan. So, for the last few months I have spent quite a bit of time researching SUVs and driving them. For 2 years I have wanted a GMC Acadia. I just love those cars. But they are kind of expensive and after driving one with Lily in the backseat I decided they were not that great. The whole ride Lily was complaining because she could not see out the windows. I had never noticed how high the windows are in SUVs. And every SUV I drove had so many blind spots, it was hard to get the kids in and out and in most of them I couldn't keep two carseats by eachother and fold the other seat down to get someone in the back. I just decided they were not very practical because of gas mileage, price, and convenience for a young family.

So, I started test driving minivans. I actually really liked the Toyota Sienna. For many reasons, it has 3 bucket seats in the middle row, I can fit all three car seats by each other or take out any of the buckets and have a kid in the back or just fold one of the seats down. It has so many options. And it has stow and go back seats which fold into the floor. It also has decent gas mileage and not too many blind spots. We found a great deal on one and we got retail trade in value on our car, so we are now minivan owners.

Pros and cons: I don't love the look of minivans but this one is pretty nice. It is a 2007 Toyota Sienna with 39k miles. Everything about it just seemed to be right for our family right now. However, you are suppose to be so excited to get a new car and Jon and I were both actually a little depressed about buying a minivan. It was kind of a mid-life (not quite) crisis sort of thing. We both just realized we are getting older, we will have 3 kids soon, Calvin starts kindergarten next year and we now own a minivan. But I do have to say, that buyer's remorse wore off pretty quickly. We drive carpool for Calvin's preschool and it has been soooo nice to have the van. It also has a V6 which is more power than my car had and we also love that. The kids love riding it, probably because of the DVD player, but nontheless, they love the new family minivan!! Oh, and a funny sidenote, we bought it at a place called "minivans only." I think that is just funny, but the kids thought it was awesome because they had this fun play area for the kids to play in while we did paperwork.