Out with the old...in the the new

We have been thinking a lot about our vehicle situation since we found out #6 is on the way.  Our Odyssey has been a great van for us and technically would be able to seat all the kids with the middle seat in the back.  There are a few concerns I had about it though:

#1 - The van has almost 200,000 miles on it and though it runs great now, will eventually need to have a lot of work done on it or replaced with a newer, lower mileage van.

#2 - With all the seats filled in the back there is no room for anyone else to ride with us - which means carpools, friends, birthday parties, etc are out of the question for us with all our kids in the car.

#3 - We will have 4 kids in carseats/boosters when the baby is born and with 3 of the carseats in the middle seat it makes it really hard for the other kids to crawl over the seat into the back.  

These are concerns I have that can definitely be worked around but we started looking at our other options just in case.  

We have toyed around with the idea of getting a large 12 or 15 passenger van and just have tons of space and seats.  Josh really liked the new Ford Transit vans and we briefly looked at them last year when they were brand new.  The problem was the price.  Since 2015 was the first year they were  made the were still outrageously priced.  Plus I wasn't sold on the huge van.  It seemed like such a long and huge vehicle to tow around when we didn't really need all those seats.  So that went on the back burner...until now.  We started to revisit the idea of a big van and once again started looking at the Ford Transit.  We looked here and there and then one day I was looking on KSL and came across an ad for a 10 passenger, leather interior Transit.  I'd never heard of a 10 passenger model and wanted to check it out and see the set up.  So early Saturday morning when Josh was at the gym I called the dealership and found out where it was and told them we wanted to come see it.  I texted Josh and told him I would pick him up from the gym and wanted him to look at a van with me.  He didn't know I had been looking seriously and really didn't know that we were headed to the dealership.  Anyhow, he was a good sport and came with me to look.  We took it for a drive and decided to think about it.  We both really liked it for the fact that it was a smaller version, had leather and the price was almost $15,000 less because it was a year old now.  So we took the weekend and talked and thought about it, test drove it again and brought it home to make sure it would fit in our garage, talked some more and Josh did some negotiating with the dealer, then finally decided that this was the van for us and our growing family!  The kids were super excited and I was too.  It was a great option for us but not too big to feel overwhelming.  

So here we are with our new Ford Transit!  We can't wait to take it home!

 This is what the interior is like.  Seats 8 in the back which is just a perfect size for us.

And one last picture of the kids with our Odyssey before it went to another family.  It was a great van for us but we are glad to have some more space and such a fun new vehicle!