Old Honda - New Honda!

On Friday, January 6th, Michael and I ended up at the Honda Dealership in Burien. My Honda Odyssey had been having problems for awhile. The main culprit had been water. We had to replace the seal for the sunroof last year and that cost a pretty penny. But there was still water getting in the van. It smelled musty and you could feel the moisture in the air. Sometimes there would be water all over inside of the windows and you'd have to wipe them down to drive. The seatbelts would even feel damp. There were other things as well such as the slider door on the drivers side would just choose to not work sometimes. It was annoying. We had had that van since November 2011 and we had planned to have it for longer, but once water starts getting into a vehicle it really goes downhill after that. 

I had originally asked Michael to contact the dealership to see if we could get our van fix. I told him it needed to get fixed or it was dead to me. He actually started looking into things and found that it would just be better to buy a van. He had looked at used vans, but it was only going to save us about $4K to buy used. For that small amount it made more sense to buy new. 

He'd been emailing back and forth with Elijah from the Honda in Burien so we met with him that Saturday to find out how much they would give us for our old van in trade-in value.

It ended up being a good price so we negotiated the deal and sign on the dotted line for our new Honda Odyssey. The only thing was it was going to take about a week for the Honda we wanted to show up because it was still in transport. That was okay though we didn't mind waiting. At first I thought we'd just take our old van home until the new one showed up, but nope....we sold it to Honda so it wasn't ours anymore. 

Out to van we went to take everything out of it and load it into the loaner. 

She was a good van and got us lots of places on lots of adventures! 

They ended up giving us a small loaner car that was fun to drive around in for a week, but I was ready for my new van!

On Saturday, January 14th, we were able to go pick it up. Of course we had bought the car, but hadn't even seen it yet so we did have the option of canceling the whole deal. We drove it around and loved it. Of course there was all sorts of things to figure out that would take time. 

The next day was Owen's actual birthday so we spent that day focusing on him. The following day, Monday, January 16th, Michael had off because of MLK Day. We spent a lot of time in the van programing things to our liking. 

Zeke and Ella came out to be with us and ended up using the new headphones to watch a movie in the van. 

This is the reason why we go with a Honda Odyssey....sure there are other nice vans out there, but for me it's all about the entertainment system. My kids are great travelers and there's a reason for that. Yes, other vans have screens too, but they are in the back of the headrests and only in the middle seats. Honda has the central entertainment system so everyone watches the same screen. I don't mind my kids watching movies when we go on trips, but I want them to do it together. I do not bring their tablets on trips. I want them to engage with each other. We've even had situations where Owen doesn't like the movie that was chosen, but he has the choice to read or draw or watch the movie. 9 out of 10 times he'll end up watching the movie and he'll be laughing and having a good time. Then later when they are talking about the movie they can engage with each other. They all weren't staring at their own individual games or shows off in their own world. Okay....stepping off my soap box now! :) 

It's like an airplane cockpit...kind of! 

That's a nice looking van! I love the blue it's call Obsidian Blue. The only thing is it does show dirt more easily than the old van. I see a lot of car washes in our future! 

And of course isn't this just what happens when you get a nice new car. On March 3rd, in the Winco parking lot while I was shopping, some person backed up and put in a dent in the front of my brand new van. Thankfully it's still drivable. It's still over $3K worth in damages because the bumper has so many sensors. They are actually having to completely replace the bumper, the side panel and the whole headlight assembly. It's nuts! Our van is scheduled to go into the shop on May 3rd if they have the parts for it. They said that since the van is brand new they are making the van not extra parts right now. It will get fixed and we're thankful for insurance to get it fixed. 

First Family Outing!

On Wednesday May 30th we went on our first family outing.

Our 4 blessings all buckled in. You might notice there has been a change since the last time I blogged about our seating arrangement. Yeah...Ella needed to be moved away from Owen. She is such an instigator and she is super ornery so we decided to make our car rides more pleasant she was getting moved. It really has made traveling in the van much easier!

Jack is over the moon that he gets to sit next to Zeke. He kept saying..."Mommy he's holding my hand!"

Cute nerdo!!!

Lookin' good with her shades!

Zeke did great at his appointment. He had gained some weight going from 6lbs 9oz to 6lbs 14oz!

I totally forgot to bring things for the kids to do, but I found some paper in my purse and a pen so Ella sat down and drew.

The boys listened to Daddy read a book.

Then my back started to hurt so it was my turn to sit down. Don't you just love those long waits at the doctor's office...I don't think so!

Then I mentioned to the kids it would be fun to surprise Dr. Apostol so Owen hid behind the exam table.

Jack and Ella hid under the table waiting to jump out and say surprise. Unfortunately the doctor was running so behind that Michael ended up having to take the kids out before he came in. Overall they did really good having to wait so long in such a small space. Another sad thing was right after this picture was taken my camera battery died so I don't have pictures of the rest of our outing. After the doctor's visit we took the kids out for some lunch and playtime at McD's! We don't normally get Happy Meals for the kids we just get a 20 piece nugget and Michael shares with the kids, but right now they have all the Madagascar toys for the new movie so couldn't pass it up. We also told Jack that part of his birthday present is getting to go see the new movie. Then we asked him if he wanted to go see it will just Mommy and Daddy or if he wanted Owen and Ella to come too. I was sure he would say he wanted Owen and Ella to come since he likes to include everyone, but he was very specific he just wants to go with Mommy and Daddy. I did tell him that Zeke would have to join us too, but he didn't seem to mind. I think it will be great to have special one on one time with him...can't wait for the movie to come out now!

More Prep Work!

On Friday I spent over and hour vacuuming the van out and getting it all clean on the inside. That included taking all the car seats out so I could clean under them...can I just say yuck! Then on Saturday while I did more prep work inside Michael spent time outside putting the car seats back in and waxing the van.

Here's the new seating arrangement. When I started to think that the baby would be sitting in the middle seat all alone that made me sad so I asked the kids who would like to sit next to the baby and Jack immediately made it known that he wanted that priveledge!

He is so happy to be sitting by the baby. I know he's going to be great helper if the baby's pacifier falls out or if the baby just needs to be talked to or have it's hand rubbed. He already loves this baby so much.

Owen (goof ball) and Ella Bean get the way backseat to themselves now. They are two peas in a pod so this really will work out nicely. Jack usually drives Ella nuts so if I could have chose who moved up I would have picked Jack anyways...thankfully he made the decision on his own. As long as Ella keeps her legs from touching Owen's things will go well.

And here is Baby Z "room" aka...corner of the office! The office at our house is actually connected to our master bedroom so it's the perfect place for the baby. Ella slept in this pack and play until she was almost 4 months old and then moved into her room. This baby will sleep in here until consistently sleeping through the night which for my babies is usually around 3 - 4 months old. It's been fun for the kids to see where Baby Z is going to sleep and ride in the van. It's just showing them that we are getting closer and closer to meeting baby!

Slowing Down & Prepping For Baby Z!

I just noticed that the ticker on the side of my blog is saying there is 37 days left to vote on whether or not Baby Z is a boy or a girl. Wow....for some reason that seriously seems like just a short time! I haven't really paid attention to the actual number of days in a long time. I've been more focused on the fact that I still have over a month to go, but when I think of it in terms of days...oh my!

Life is definitely slowing down at our house and I couldn't be happier! Jack graduated from Occupational Therapy a little over a month ago, I stopped taking the boys to Taekwondo at the beginning of April and I just recently decided to stop going to my Wednesday morning Bible Study. I wish I could keep going, but right now I know that my body needs me to tone it down.

This is also my last week to watch Logan and then I'm on maternity leave. I'm excited to just have my kiddos for 4 1/2 months. And next Monday is our last day of homeschooling and then we'll be on summer break. I'm so proud of all 3 boys and their accomplishments. It's been neat seeing the progress they have made and I'm excited to see what they learn and accomplish next year. We are planning on taking them to a Fire House and then out to MCD's for a big end of the school year finale. We have also talked about having a "program" sort of day so the boys can show of their skills for the Daddys.

I've been waiting until I'm longer watching Logan to make a few changes in preparation for Baby Z. Since she sleeps in the pack and play that Baby Z will I haven't been able to adjust that for a newborn, but at the end of the week I will. I'm also looking forward to being able to take the baby gate of the stairs. All my kids are fine with going upstairs and so is Logan, but I do like having the ability to keep her downstairs since the upstairs is still sort of a novelty for her and she is a sneaky little girl! ;) We are going to be switching things up in regards to the seating arrangement at the table. Since I won't be able to pick Ella up after my C-Section we are moving her into Owen's old chair that has stairs so she can climb up on her own. Owen will be moving into a normal dinning room chair. They will all be moving to a different seating location at the table. If you know Owen you know that he does NOT do well with change so we'll see how this goes. Another thing we will be changing is the seating arrangements in the van. Owen will be staying where he is so he won't be upset, but Jack will be moving up. He is going to sit up next to Baby Z's car seat...this is something he's actually excited about!

I've also been going through my wardrobe. When I first when through my maternity clothes I wasn't really thinking about spring/summer clothes, but after today it was time to take out some of them. Man I've been getting hot lately! This week I'll be 34 weeks and I'm planning on packing my suitcase for the hospital soon. Ever since having Owen 3 weeks early I've always made sure to have my bag packed by 35 weeks. I'm not sure when this baby is going to come, but if I had to put money on it I would definitely say Baby Z is going to come before my scheduled C-Section and if you ask me I'm fine with that!

Our New Ride!

For the last couple years we've known that when the time came for us to trade in our Chrysler Town & Country we would buy a Honda Odyssey. For some reason...probably God planting the thought in my head....a couple weeks ago I started thinking about looking on Craigslist for a van. I just could not get the thought of my head. That weekend we went to Honda of Fife to test drive one. They had a 2006 and a 2008. The 2006 was pretty worn and it was gold. Our current van is gold and I'm not really a fan. The 2008 van was nice, but it didn't have leather and with kids you need leather. They did say they could upgrade to the leather for us, but at the time we just weren't ready to make a deal. We needed to check out our finances a bit more closely first. Last Monday night we decided that it was a good deal and we should head down there and see what we could work out. Unfortunately the van was already in the process of being bought by someone else. The salesman did say that the people trying to buy it had horrible credit so their financing might not go through. We weren't worried though I knew that God had the perfect van in store for us.

Old Town & Country Van

The very next afternoon the guy from Honda of Fife called to see if we were interested in the gold van. I told him we weren't, but if the other van came available to let us know. Then while the girls were taking their naps I decided to check online to see if there were other vans in the area that had leather already. I really didn't want to have to wait for them to put the leather seats in. I ended up finding a 2008 Odyssey EX-L at the Honda of Sumner I wanted to go check out. I called Michael and told him about it and asked him if he'd call the dealership to make sure it was still there so we didn't drive all the way down there for nothing. It was still there so after Taekwondo the kids and I went home, picked up Michael and headed out.

By the  time we got down there it was almost 7pm! Thankfully dealerships are really good about having things for kids to do. They have free popcorn for them to munch on and one of the vans was plugged in so the kids could watch a movie on the DVD player. The salesman Mike had the van waiting for us so I could take it for a test drive. Michael stayed with the kids. It wasn't much different from the 2006 I test drove at the Honda of Fife. The Odyssey drives like a car...it's great!

Anyways when we got back the salesman took the keys to my van and started doing all the research to be able to tell me what they would give us for trading it in. Of course they came back with a ridiculous number and I wasn't going to have it. I actually brought up on their computer the Kelly Blue Book price that I came up with. I told them I wanted 6K for our van and that was it. I also told him I had a check in my purse and this was what we were willing to pay. Unfortunately this is where there was a bit of a miscommunication between me and the salesman. It wasn't discovered though until the final paperwork was being signed and Michael was already installing the car seats in the van. It's okay though...I thought we were going to get a SCREAMING deal, but we still got a great deal! It was fun dealing with him by myself. I felt like a woman in charge! :)

I totally wasn't expecting them to let us take the van that night because I needed to change the check I had from Honda of Fife to Honda of Sumner. They did though! Since it was a bit unexpected we hadn't cleaned out the van. It's amazing what accumulates in all those nooks and crannies. When we had made the deal I called my parents and they came down...the dealership wasn't far from their house. It was nice to have them there to keep an eye on the kids while Michael and I did the paperwork.

When it was time to go we got pictures with the old van and the new one. It was nice that my parents got to see the old van off since my Dad bought that van for my Mom brand new for Christmas in 2000. He even had our friend Santa Al deliver it to her. When we were getting in the van Owen and Ella were quite excited about it, but Jack was SO unhappy. He kept saying he wanted our old van. Then as we got closer and closer to home Owen got more and more agitated and started saying he wanted our old van too. The next morning Owen had finally come around and now he thinks the new van is "awesome"! Jack still wanted the old one back!

We took a long trip to OR for Thanksgiving and it was so nice. It drove like a dream and the kids had fun watching a movie on the DVD player. We have told them that the DVD play is only for long trips. I'm not going to have them watching a movie every time we get in the van.