6 passenger car- that's right I said car!

It is a good thing we didn't buy a house last year while we were discerning and house hunting.  After the anxiety and struggle with buying a car I am not ready to deal with buying a house.  It feels wierd to blog about buying a car except that it was a big deal for us, and when I mentioned it on facebook like 8 people wrote "what car seats 7 and isn't an SUV or a van." Seems like the world needs some info:

We hadn't exactly planned on buying a car this weekend.  We knew that car buying was coming our way, our car has turned into a sight for sore eyes.  More than being a beast that was growing wings (literally part of it was sticking out of the side) we are outgrowing it fast.  We realized that once we have baby #2 we will not be able to even take our poor dog to the dog park let along welcome a family member by greeting them at the airport.

from autobytel.com

So we started to do our research.  Living in a city (thus lots of parrallel parking) and having a budget meant that we didn't want a minivan.  But having a growing family meant needing more space.  So we put on our international brains and starting researching cars that hold more than 5 people (with car seats 5 people isn't quite true anyway).  We discovered the Mazda 5 and the Kia Rondo; each are cars with a third row of back seats.

So once we knew what we narrowed that we started sorting out prices online and stuff.  And then, on our way to the dog park on Sunday we passed a Kia/Mazda Dealership and poof it became the project of the weekend.

Sunday was spent looking at some cars and then doing our share of internet research and discussing and then monday was spent at two different dealerships.  It sucked actaully: it took forever, Junia was with us, I don't like negotiating and their wasn't a woman employee in sight and again it just took forever!  Really, I had no idea it would take that long- the one high point in the day was learning that  Sean is a really awesome negotiator (who knew!)

from newmazdainfo.com

So now we have a car: a car payment, airbags that will probably work, and a warranty for awhile.  We also have enough seats for us, the future baby (current fetus), and guests.  We won't be paying more in gas milage, and we can still paralell park on our street.    It is our biggest purchase to date and feels like it.


As part of all of this we are asking ourselves questions about ethics, privelege, and being part of our culture while keeping other parts as counter cultural, big purchases have a way of making us very reflective.