January - The Gray Lady

For years, we've been talking about buying another van but have kept pushing it off.

Sean's 1995 Honda Civic has been on it's last leg for a while now.

The clutch needs replacing, one of the gears doesn't work 

and it makes a weird grinding noise, and it's leaking coolant like crazy.

One of the windows is being held up by duct tape and the driver seat is being held in place by zip ties.

Oh and there is no air conditioning.

Our 2006 Dodge Caravan has just over 150,000 miles and is starting to need minor repairs.

Sean doesn't trust it on road trips anymore.

Last month, Sean finally decided that he was done and wanted to buy a new van this year.

I had try to convince him to wait another year but finally agreed with him.

We wanted a van with 8 seats. Our Caravan only has 7, which means we have no extra seats.

The only vans with 8 seats are the Toyota Sienna, Kia Sedona and Honda Odyssey.

We found a dealership that all three of those vans.
Lexi and Avery were at a sleepover with their cousins,
and since we didn't know how long we'd be gone, we took the younger three with us.

There were so many people looking at vans at the dealership. We went to Veloctiy in American Fork.

It was crazy. You had to wait to get keys to look at most of the vans.

We quickly ruled out the Sienna. We didn't like it's extra 8th seat as much.

There was only one Sedona and one Odyssey that we were interested in.

We walked back and forth between those two vans several times.

Sitting in them over and over again and comparing them.

Here's the outside of the Kia Sedona.

And here's the inside of the Honda Odyssey. It is a 2015. It had 45,000 miles on it just like the Kia.

It was incredibly fancy but it was so much nicer than our Caravan. We really liked the 8th seat too.

We wanted to test drive the Odyssey first but someone else beat us to it.

So we test drove the Kia first. It was a 2017 and had leather interior and all the bells and whistles.

It was very nice. But we didn't know as much about it's reputation.

We liked it. But couldn't decided anything without driving the Odyssey.

As soon as the other family got back, then went inside and talk to a guy for a long time.

Finally they left and we immediately test drove the Odyssey.

We knew right away that it was our favorite and that we wanted it.

Hondas have such good reputations 

and that was more important to us then the fancy upgrades of the Kia.

After we signed all the paperwork, we waited for a long time 

while they put on new front tires (something Sean had asked them to do) and wash the van.

The kids ran around the showroom having a great time but being loud and a little wild.

No one seemed to mind though. We actually really liked all the staff at Velocity.

We had a great experience with them.

While we were waiting the man who had test drove the Odyssey before us called back.

Apparently he had asked them to hold it for him. But without putting money down, they didn't.

He didn't even seem that serious since he didn't even have the vehicle that he wanted to trade in.

I guess he sound mad on the phone when he was told that we bought the van. 

We were so happy though!

Finally the van was ready and we got the keys.

I had decided that I wanted to name my new van, The Gray Lady.

The Gray Lady is Rowena Ravenclaw's daughter Helena. 

She is the house ghost of Ravenclaw at Hogwarts.

My girls were so excited about the Harry Potter themed name when I told them.

After we were done, Sean drove Big Red (which we may start possibly calling The Man Van) 

and I drove The Gray Lady to Michelle's house to pick up the girls.

It had been a very long day and we were all tired.

The next day we were excited to all ride in our new van together for the first time.

After church we went for a little drive. 

Lexi kept telling us that this was the nicest car she had ever been in.

The kids all were so excited about our new van. Compared to our old one, it is pretty fancy.

The day after we bought the new van, 

Sean found a family in our neighborhood who wanted to buy Blue Bell.

Two days later they took it.

We were so grateful for the Civic when Michelle and Justin gave it to us.

That was so generous of them and such a blessing to our family.

That was the first time we had two vehicles and it provided me with so much freedom.

The Civic has been a great car for Sean even though it kept getting broke into and even stolen.

But Sean couldn't be more excited for his new ride.