October 2, 2011: Buying a Family Car

It's T-2 days until Baby Gaudette arrives, and Grant and my last weekend (ever?!?!) as just the two of us. While I originally had visions for this weekend of sleeping in, romantic walks, date nights, and the like, let's face it -- I can hardly sleep, and we are both in MAJOR nesting mode.

Ever since Grant's car climbed past the 200K mile mark several months ago, we've been thinking that it is time to buy a new car. And Baby Gaudette's impending arrival provided us with just the motivation we needed to move forward with the purchase. We spent several hours on Saturday test driving the three SUVs we had narrowed it down to -- the Toyota Highlander, the Acura MDX, and the Ford Explorer -- and then several hours on Sunday finalizing the decision and making the purchase. Which did we choose?

THE TOYOTA HIGHLANDER, Limited Edition!!! It's super fancy and amazing, and we think it will be a perfect family car.


Some of the special features that we love:
-Smart Key: we can start the car with the push of a button, while the key is buried in the diaper bag, and the doors automatically unlock when we walk up to the car with our hands full of groceries and baby gear
-Navigation: to help us find our way on family road trips
-Built-in DVD player in back: Baby Gaudette will certainly love this in a couple of years time
-Leather interior: will be easy to clean up spills
-Bluetooth phone system: so I can actually talk legally while driving
-Heated seats: who doesn't need this?!?!
-And just about everything else you can think of!