Meet Trip

So, remember that Lacks Family announcement I mentioned earlier?  Well here it is...the newest member of our family, Trip (Troy named him by the way):

We have been trying to make arrangements to bring Trip home since November.  We just could not agree on the right price, until this weekend.  We finalized everything on Saturday, and brought Trip home tonight.

We were so excited to get Trip home, show him off  to the kids, and take pictures to share with everyone when we realized that I-phone pics at night are not very good.  I pulled out the camera, but those too weren't the best!

Trip has a back up camera and lots of other fun features that we just haven't figured out yet  He is a smokey topaz color with a truffle interior...basically that means he's dark grey w/a bit of brown, and some sparkly metallic colors, with a dark brownish/gray interior.

He holds two carseats with tons of room to spare...so IF we needed to add a third, or fourth we could...which means one thing....Owen & Brynnleigh can start inviting friends to go with them places! ; )  The kids met Trip for the first time, and we are so glad there is no jealousy between them.  Owen started counting seats and cup holders immediately!  Brynnleigh just jumped up in between the two seats and laughed!

Here's the low down on Trip - he's a 2012 Honda Odyssey that will be used for our family trips, and anytime we think we will have more than the 4 of us in the car.  With two kids in car seats, our other cars (4 Runner & Explorer) get cramped, especially when I have to sit between the two seats if we take anyone with us.  So yes, we bought this as an "extra" car, not an everyday car....but our other two cars are my company car, and my 11 year old 4-Runner....we would have to replace one or both eventually anyways.  We thought it was smart to get the car we wanted, and start looking to get the price we wanted before we "had" to buy a car.

I am pretty happy with the price that we got....I do know (of course it's after the fact) that I could have possibly gotten it a bit cheaper ($500) but the hassle is over, and we are all happy.  I was able to talk the dealer into adding the roof rails and cross bars for half price...so maybe that will make up for the difference.

We got the car about a little more than 15% off the list price, and well, now it's done...and I'm so glad I don't have to talk to another sales person.  Now the fun part of having a car payment again!

Oh, and guess how smoothly Trip drives?  Don't worry...I have a picture to prove it...this would be less than 5 minutes into the kids first ride in Trip....

I'm not sure why I like this so much....but check out the little "well" we have in the back to store things...how nice would this be w/some groceries...the bags won't tip over and send canned goods rolling around in your car.

Trip is the first car Troy has ever bought, and his first ever car payment.  We are looking forward to all the family memories we will make with Trip. 

And just an FYI from me....I know a lot of people don't think mini vans are cool, but I don't care.  If you could have seen the look on my kids' faces when they saw "their" van, it's worth every bit of grief we may get for having a van.  Owen is so excited that he has 8 seats and 7 (+) cup holders.  He's already told us where he wants his seat on our next "trip".  He also opened the van up and said...it's just like "RG's"...his very best friend's van.  He understands that he can now ask both Missy & Papa & MeeMaw & PawPaw to ride with him.  I don't care if I drive a cardboard box...as long as it's safe for my family....and now with this big cardboard box, I can drive my happy little family and our friends, whereever we want to go.  I'm proud of our Trip purchase...and I can't wait to see where he takes us...literally!