Well, I've officially gone somewhere that I never thought I would venture.  A place I swore up and down I would never go.  Yes, the forbidden land of mini-van ownership.  I cringe even typing it...but I'm slowly starting to warm up to the idea.  It's not THAT bad, I guess (woah, did I just say that?!).

To be honest, it took months of research, many visits to CarMax and various dealerships to look at cars and SUVs, getting in and out of every type of car/truck/SUV/etc out there, basically exhausting EVERY option out there before I would even THINK about the mere possibility that we might get a minivan.  In the end, our situation is unique in a couple of ways and it is because of this that our do able options were severely limited.  First of all, we are about a week and 2 days away from having three small children, ALL of whom will need to be seated in a car seat.  Three in car seats is a slightly unique situation, yes, but three in car seats AND a husband who is 6'5" is what really made the whole search process an adventure in itself.  If Myke is sitting comfortably in either the driver's seat or the front passenger seat, a rear-facing infant seat does not fit behind him very well, if at all, if almost EVERY single car or SUV that we looked at.  If the car seat is secured and latched in correctly, Myke's knees are up in the front windshield due to lack of legroom.

A visual for you: rear-facing infant seat

Another visual for you:  Myke's long legs

It would be one thing if we only needed ONE rear-facing infant seat in the car...but we will have TWO, which complicates matters even further.  Also, the latest safety recommendations are that you keep babies facing backwards in their car seats for two years (versus one).  

The crossover we have now, my beloved Hyundai Veracruz, is something we would have longer than 3 1/2 years, but then again, I never saw twins in my future, and, unfortunately, it just won't work for us with three in car seats.  It even has a third row and can seat 7-8 people so I thought it would be just fine--but when we attempted to put in three car seats we quickly realized we would be like sardines in a can in that car.  Even if we attempt to spread out and put two the two boys in the second row and put Chloë in the third row, the only way for Chloë to even get to the third row would be through the back tailgate!  With the infant bases latched in place you can't move the seats forward to enter from the 2nd row.  This is obviously a problem- along with the aforementioned issue of Myke's long legs.  We also looked at SUVs with captain chairs and an "aisle" to the third row, but with two rear-facing infants in those we arrived at the same problem: not being able to get Chloë to the third row easily.  Even if we found one that did have an accessible third row once the car seats were all in, there was no room for a stroller (triple or double-size, mind you) or the dog with the third row up.  Yes, Kyla was definitely a factor we considered when choosing the car.  We take her with us whenever possible so it was a MUST that she had a spot in whatever car we chose.  (*A Suburban is the only one we found that would fit everything and everyone, but it still had the issue of accessing the third row AND it is too long for our parking spot.  This would leave me with no choice but to park the huge gas-guzzling monster out on the street and then lugging three small children down the sidewalk to the house, IF I even was lucky to get a spot close to the house).  

Anyways, I won't go on forever, but my point it...I definitely arrived at this point kicking and screaming.  No rock was left unturned (for lack of a better phrase) in our search for a car that would work for us as a family of 5 with a large dog.  

So today we got a Honda Odyssey.  It's black with truffle colored seats (dark gray).  I insisted on black, which was a bit difficult to find.  I guess I figured if I have to have a mini-van I should at least like the color, right?  Myke has been sold on the mini-van idea long before me and wasn't too concerned about color.  He is more interested in the gadgets, bells & whistles that come with it like the bluetooth option and how he can listen to music from his iPhone over the speaker system.  

Myke in the Odyssey

Our Veracruz (on the left) and the Odyssey (on the right)

They actually don't look THAT different in the end....

To be honest, I'm not even sure why I dislike minivans so much.  It's not even the soccer-mom stigma.  It's the van itself.  However, the Odyssey isn't as bad as some of the other ones I've seen so I'm hoping I'll come to embrace it, and maybe even learn to like it just as Myke has come to do.