A couple weeks ago, I read “The Journey,” written by Tammy at Notes from the Homefront. In it, she chronicles her recent trip to the car dealership to trade in her minivan, and she reflects on the transition in her life the change in her vehicle represents. (Click over and read the post, she explains it much more eloquently than I can.)
The post really resonated with me. What stuck with me most was the ending – her excitement about what the future holds made me feel optimistic about my future as well.
Then on Sunday I went for a long walk down a quiet country road, all by myself, trying to become reacquainted with my own thoughts (and perhaps burn a few calories. Whichever came first.). I dreamed up lots of good ideas (just ask Jenny – I was texting them to her as they occurred to me) and one of them was that Andy and I should buy a new car. We’d had our two Toyotas for eight and 10 years respectively, and while neither had any huge mechanical issues, they both had upwards of 170,000 miles on them. Our Camry, in particular, was old and noisy and beat up. However, we didn’t have a reason to replace either of them.
It was about the time I was texting my dad wondering how I could arrange for our car to get hit by a school bus that I started to think – what are we waiting for? Our Camry was 10 years old. If we buy a new car today and drive it for 10 more years, I thought to myself, Kate will be sixteen.
As if that thought wasn’t traumatic enough in and of itself, I then realized that Kate was in fact no longer six and that in 10 years she would actually be 18.
I thought back to Tammy’s post and decided there was no time like the present to become a minivan mom.
So we went out and bought this.
One hundred percent necessary? Of course not. One hundred percent worth it? Absolutely.
Because here’s the thing. This time in our lives, this Minivan Moment – it won’t last very long. We need to embrace it, we need to live it.
And then we need to look forward to what comes next.
We have had 2 minivans. Wonderful memories of trips where the kids couldn’t touch each other, each had their own bench seat, really it WAS worth it.
UP
ahem…where’d you get it?
Nice. You will love it. The time was (is) right. We have had three.
Sniff Sniff. You left out the part where I convinced you via text to pull the trigger!! You won’t regret it because it’s a SIENNA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! For the love of all that’s holy, Toyota will you PLEASE start paying us to blog about you? GEEZ!
It’s a tough jump to make, but we did it about a year ago and I love our minivan! Congrats! And Jenny is right…Toyota should pay you guys!! 🙂
You’ll love how much baseball equipment you can fit in there! And transporting half of a team with all the boy smell too! We definitely couldn’t have done the last couple of years without ours 🙂
I am surprised that Charlie did not mention Ferris…he loves that movie. But anyway, congrats! Your trips will be so much easier. I bet the kids are excited. And don’t mention that Kate being 16 thing again…I am in denial about all of those family babies growing up and leaving us behind.
Just read The Journey…beautiful!
Then you can amke Kate drive it and you can celebrate your empty nest years while sending her out into the world and buying a VW beetle. Or a goldwing.
between your sweet post and readying the post you recommended, thanks for making me cry at work, jerk.
Loved this post—we are on to the full size van moment and now the two kids driving moment….cherish them all! Our oldest turned 18 last week and had his first buy my own car moment shortly thereafter….time marches on….