our new ride!!!

just what pat wanted for his birthday...a new 12 passenger van - ha!!

we started talking about a bigger car last summer. we made our minivan work for the 8 of us for 2 years, but as the kids were getting bigger, it was getting harder. they were crammed in TIGHT back there. and this is how they had to get from the back row up to the front to get out...

 they each had their own methods...but you get the idea.

we were also running into carpool issues. i couldn't carpool with people unless pat was home in time, which was basically never. 

we researched, and ordered this car in nov 2012. i won't go into the whole story in this post...let's focus on the positive! we didn't tell the kids and had fun having it be a surprise.

WE GOT THE CAR YESTERDAY!

i dropped pat off at the nissan (it's a nissan nv3500) place in the afternoon. he did all the paperwork, and drove it to the elementary school up the street from our house. he walked home and then we told the kids we were going for a little walk...can you see the car in the background?? under the pink tree??

 as we got next to it, pat was all, "hey! that's a cool car! we should get something like that! oh, wait, i have the key IN MY POCKET!" it was so fun to watch the kids expressions as they processed and "got it."

we took it for a little spin...

 it is BIG. like, a TRUCK. but, driving it around today (saturday) I AM IN LOVE. it's so awesome.

 has some fun stuff for the passenger...navigation...LOTS of storage space...

we feel blessed to be able to buy something like this to carry our family around. not like i was very inconspicuous before...what with 6 kids trailing me all the time, but i'm like a blinking siren now! i got SO many looks today!