you drive a what???

An Expedition. I know, I know! There are half truths floating around out there about women driving big SUV's....but I'm not one of *them*...I promise you!!! *I* can park mine tyvm!

A lot of people ask my why I dont drive a mini van- they're so much economical (really? I dunno...they're kinda...umm...well not ....me.), and if you have a "lot" of kids (which aparently 4 is a lot??) you *need* one. ::blink:: Huh??

So I was reading fixitmommy's blog today about her new minivan and decided to blog about how we ended up with our Expedition.

2 months before #4 (Scooty Pants) was due, hubs decided we needed to upgrade from our 5 seatbelt Scion xB. Because really, you can't have 4 carseats in an xB. (trust me! We bearly fit 3 accross the back seat!)

We hit all the dealerships here in town. Looked at every mini van and small SUV on every lot. We were unimpressed. I think a lot of it was emotional. It was not going to be easy to say goodbye to my bad lowered xB with its limo tint windows, custom fuzzy interior (thanks hubs!), custom stereo including dash speaker pods and sub enclosure hubs had painstakingly hand crafted himself, rims, OEM tail lights.... it portrayed the image of the *hot* mom...I pulled up at school in that thing (after being the proud owner of a beat up 4 door Ford Escort for a long while) and I went from "is that Sassy and Bossy's mom or nanny?? Is she legal yet?" to "Sassy and Bossy's mom is HOT!" (ok then eventually to "Sassy and Bossy's mom is getting really round...is she smuggling a basketball under her shirt???") If you can't tell....I'm the very youngest mom at the twins school. By a lot. And when I say a lot, I mean some of these parents are the same age as *my* parents.

We had a hard time finding anything we wanted to swap our bad xB for. Because really...how the heck do you upgrade from that... being "cool" to being...that mom driving a mini van...

I tried. I really tried. I test drove every mini van on seemingly every lot in so cal and I couldnt find one that I lurved! My most major setback was trying to climb around between all the seats to buckle in 4 carseats. Plus so many of them I couldnt get a decent sized stroller AND a costco haul in the back without booting one of the kids out and folding down a seat. FAIL! Ugh, it was a PAIN! I was almost sold on an 03 odyssey and Hubs decided he had to "think about it"...when we came back to look at it again to help our decision along, it was gone. Eh- I didnt really want to pimp out an odyssey anyway...did I??? (The correct answer btw is NO! Only POSERS pimp out minivans!) Plus, how the heck do you decipher your white odyssey from every other white odyssey in the parking lot at Target?! Aparently, if you're a poser, you paint flames on it and put rims on it. PASS!

Then one day hubs and I were watching Rob and Big on MTV. Rob's Tahoe was *hot*. Black on black on black....I liked that. No I wanted that. No....I needed that. Hmmm...how much is it for black aftermarket tail lights anyway? So we got on cars.com and found my Expedition. It was black with black tail lights and charcol wheels. And*hot*. Long story short, that very day we traded our sad little xB in and brought home my hot expedition.

How's the gas milage you ask? Esp with the current price of gas? Dont ask. I'll say this much...there's a reason we havent gone anywhere most of the summer aside from the occasional playdate and trip to the grocery store...
But its HOT. (superficial! I know!)