R.I.P.

The end of an era has come to our family. In 1999, we were planning a trip to Cave Creek, Arizona, to spend Thanksgiving with Trav's father's family. At the time, I was driving a very old, very used - and I'll certainly add VERY ugly - grey van. It's been so long ago, I can't even remember what kind of van it was, other than it was boxy and horrifically unattractive. I used it to tote Miah, Erin and my li'l bro Alex (who is only two months older than Miah) around to gymnastic and karate lessons, and the occasional drive-in movie. As a matter of fact, that van had a... memorable aroma, owing to a disastrous drive-in viewing of Tarzan. Alex didn't feel so well and after HE threw up the smell caused Miah to join him. Of course, Erin figured out what the boys were doing and added her own contribution. Keep in mind, we were at a drive-in on opening night of a Disney movie. My van wasn't leaving that parking lot - there were kids all over the place...

Anyway, I digress. The van stunk! Trav and I decided it wasn't mechanically sound enough to make the trip to Arizona and home, and our other vehicle at the time was a two door Eagle. We debated just driving the Eagle, but I would wake up in the middle of the night with the sweats, imagining the four of us - particularly the two in the backseat - making the twelve hour drive practically sitting on each other's laps. Bleck! We hit the dealer's lot and bought a brand-spankin'-new Mazda MPV.



Fast forward to Thursday, November 20th, 2008. Time to have the safety and emissions done on the van that has seen my children grow from 5 and 4 years old, to 14 and 13 years. Wow! Imagine how surprised I was to learn that the poor thing (that has accrued 170,689 miles over its lifetime) needed a MINIMUM of $2400 in repairs to pass the emissions inspection. *SIGH* In June, we dropped around $3000 into the old cow to keep it running, so I debated spending more - I didn't want my June investment to be wasted! We decided it was time to let the dead horse really be dead. We headed over to Willey Honda and found this used Honda Odyssey. (No new for us this time, as we have a new FURNACE that had to be put in two weeks ago, and we'll end up paying a pretty penny for our daughter's post-teenage-moment stay at the University.)

No, that's not bad paint on the hood... that's just frost from this morning! Here are some cool things the Odyssey has that the Mazda didn't have: leather seats, front seat warmers, a DVD player (woot!) with console game hookups, automatic sliding side doors, and a luggage rack.

It was a little bittersweet to clean out the junk from the Mazda (we found some stuff in there we haven't seen since the year 2000) but we're excited about the DVD player. Really, the DVD player was the clincher!

Rest In Peace Mazda. You've had your last french fry dropped in the crevice of the seat runners. Your last cappuccino spilled down the side of the seat. Your last little boy breaking off the panic handle trying to swing out of the door like a monkey, last shopping cart ding, and last road trip to Arizona. Bye!