Whirlwind

After spending many many hours over the course of two days at car dealerships, we became a two car family on Saturday. The first experience at the dealership had a really bad outcome. Like the worst ever full of way too many discrepancies in the price we were being told and what was listed on-line compared to what we faced when we got to the final step. We walked away from the deal and the cute little Volvo C30. I didn't even feel bad about it (except for how fun the car was).

Later that evening I went to the Honda dealership we got our fit from  because I saw an Accord I was interested in. The Accord had sold earlier in the day, but on the lot was a Toyota Prius. I have been in-love with this 50+ mpg car since it first came out, despite its boxy futuristic exterior (which I now find quite endearing), but they're always just beyond our budget with low miles, and way too many miles when we can afford them. This one was different. All the cars on lot, both new and used, had varying degrees of hail damage. You know what that means, right? Wait for it....

We got one hail of a deal. ;)

We love everything about it so far. Her/his name is still pending. We had a great experience (again) at Bob Howard Honda.

And purchasing the Prius is what led to this evening. I thought, since we now have the versatility of the Prius, perhaps we could trade Olive (our Outback) for something with a lower monthly payment now that we have more than one car. We found another Accord we really liked, went and test drove it, and really really liked it. The payment couldn't get right where we wanted it to be, but we weren't budging one bit. Why? I'll tell you in a second. There was a 2011 Outback on the lot with black interior. This is important because I pretty much hate the ivory interior of ours. Whatever the extra money would have been to go with leather would have been worth it. The 2011 Outback was even manual, which Jake has been wanting. We thought we could do more of a trade, still have an Outback but a lower monthly payment. It worked out that the lower monthly payment was on our side with that Outback, but here's the deal: We LOVE Olive - even with her seats that are a nightmare with kids. And even us, and we don't even eat in it, but the front seats look like we eat greasy drippy really stain-y things all the time. We drove home in the car we came in, and I'm glad. I even kissed her steering wheel on the way out of the dealership and sang her love ballads on the way home. We're going to have Olive detailed and her seats scotch guarded, and if that doesn't seem to do the trick, we'll invest in some seat covers. I LOVE OUR OUTBACK! (But if you think you'll love one too, remember either leather or dark cloth.)

I hope all goes as planned and that we end up passing the two cars we have now to our girls when they get old enough to drive. ;)  I don't really want to drive into a car dealership for at least a decade. Now we just need to sell Scoot, our scooter.

And with all the car buying and keeping excitement out of the way, tomorrow is the day that our 3-day potty training method session begins with Magnolia. It begins in the morning with her getting to pick up the princess potty she picked out from Target. Cora was SOOO easy in the transition from diapers to panties. I know it might not work that way with Magnolia, but I am just so happy about the idea of being done with diapers that I can't wait for tomorrow to get here. We also turned her car seat around today. Huge step!

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