Just Call Us the Swagger Family

We’ve gone through a few cars in our 11 years of marriage. Our first was a 1989 fire-engine red Audi 5000. It was an old boxy grandma car (truly, it was. We bought it from Chris’s great-aunt and -uncle, who bought it from his grandparents) and we loved it. We drove it until the day it died, quietly and without fanfare, on a stretch of 7th East in downtown Salt Lake City.

After that we got a Toyota Corolla. It was small, simple, and reliable, although as basic as you could possibly get. No automatic locks, no cruise control (which, let me tell you, would have come in really handy on our move to Oregon), but still a great car for a family of four. Once Ellie was on the way, though, we realized the little Corolla just wasn’t going to cut it for a family of five.

So we upgraded to a Subaru Outback. And it was awesome. Three carseats fit in the back, no problem. It carried us to Utah and back 10 times in the course of five years. The cargo space was unparalleled, and, apart from the slightly ghetto driver’s side window, we never had a single problem with it. But it had a lot of miles on it and was beginning to show signs of its age.

Plus, the kids just kept getting bigger. And the car didn’t.

So, after squirreling away our pennies for three years (three very looooong years), doing lots of online research, and spending two days driving around to a variety of dealerships (from the slightly scary to the overly imposing), we are now the proud owners of a Toyota Sienna minivan! Yay us!



Our new ride.


The girls came along to help out. They were very discerning.

Test drive!


They approved of the bucket seats and “magic doors”, but were disappointed by the lack of drop-from-the-ceiling screen in the first car we test drove. And also the missing mirror from the driver’s side visor.


We did not buy this car.


But they liked the play area and free popcorn at one dealer and the free candy at another.

Vicki, who definitely has the most Ebert genes of any of our daughters, made a chart so she could keep track of the cars we looked at.

The second car we test drove (which did happen to have a drop-down screen – bonus!) ended up being “the one”. It had a few more miles than we were hoping for, but the price was good, and, most importantly, they made us an offer we couldn’t refuse for a trade-in on the Outback.

So we bid a fond farewell to the car we’ve occasionally referred to as “Kermit” (I’m pretty sure Uncle Scotty named it)


Goodbye, old friend.


and drove home in what has been dubbed “Kermit II”. I didn’t actually want another green car, but you take what you can get, and it’s already growing on me.

And we managed to strike gold and landed ourselves the luxury edition, which means leather seats (heated!) and an excellent surround sound system. It also means we get to enjoy my personal favorite part:

That's right.  Our new car has a VCR. Not a DVD player, but a VCR. How many other people do you know with a VCR in their car?

Just watch us swagger.