Meet the Beast

My green wagon died TEN weeks ago tomorrow (but who's counting?).

For once in my life, I decided to make my life easier by just buying a car. I'm thankful that we're able to afford to buy a car because I know a lot of people aren't. (Hopefully my Volvo will be fixed so Dave can drive it and we can chuck the Saturn.)Here's our 2008 Toyota Sienna that we bought on Black Friday at CarMax.It is the lowest model package you can get in a Sienna so there aren't any fancy do-dads to break. Considering our other cars are 11 years old, having such a new car is a real treat for us. We looked at a Town and Country, liked the way it handled, but it had so much unnecessary stuff that we were sure would break long before we were done with it (DVD player, navigation system, etc.).

We really wanted leather seats so the dogs wouldn't stain the seats too much, but we couldn't justify spending that much more money for that option. We also wanted a light exterior color (white or silver) but those vans only come with light tan interiors, which would get mighty dirty from our dogs. So we opted for a black van with gray cloth seats since this van was the best deal around. We actually had to have it shipped from the Modesto CarMax since the ones in Roseville were more money for more miles. I know it'll get hot in the summer but that's just something we'll have to deal with. Dave's looking into buying removable seat covers that we can wash occasionally.

So although we didn't get exactly what we wanted in a minivan, we did get the most important things: reliability that comes with a newer vehicle (with a 5 year warranty!) and lots of cargo and people space. We had to balance the amount we wanted to spend with things like color and trim level.

So far it is a great car for our little family. It has lots of room, it handles well even on curvy Highway One up to my in-laws' house, is very easy to get Eddie's seat in and out, and the dogs can walk around the middle seats to get out instead of plowing over Eddie's car seat. Dave and his long legs are quite comfortable even with the baby seat positioned directly behind him.