Swagger Wagon

We got one. A minivan. This afternoon!

The story: Sacha, Natalia and I had breakfast with my sister this morning while Mateo was having a date with Apa. It was delicious and fortifying and so lovely to see my sister, as always. Anyway, we had planned to stop by the local dealership to test drive a Sienna again, since we had pretty much ruled out the Odyssey after test driving it recently. We knew we wanted a Sienna and we had done some research on pricing, but hadn't seriously started looking. We did, however, have a long conversation about what features we wanted in our new driving home, as we had to wait FOREVER to get seated at the brunch place. It was funny to have to wait so long, since normally we're up with the birds and, if we dare to go out, done with breakfast before a line even has a chance to form.

Anyway, so we had looked at Consumer Reports and found all the recommended years for the Sienna, which had a major redesign in 2004, so it was 2004 to now, except for 2007, in which the Sienna totally tanked. Bizarre. We were chatting about the model years (I know, this is fascinating) and I said to Sacha that I would prefer to have a totally tricked out, bells and whistles older model than a more basic newer one.

That, as it turned out, is exactly what we found. There were four used Siennas at the dealership and two caught our eye. The first was a newer model that had eight seats but with not too many features and too high of a price. The second was this 2004 Sienna XLE with seven seats but with everything else we wanted - automatic doors (that you can control with the key fob or from the front console) and an automatic rear door, heated seats, a sunroof, easy temperature control for the front and rear, a fancy music system, and I could go on but I won't. The seat thing was what had been holding us back all along - did we really want eight seats, which means two rows of three seats in back, so you have to climb over or fold down one seat to get to the far back? Or, did we want seven seats, with more freedom of movement but one less person to potentially carry?

We ended up deciding that we wanted seven, because the times we would carry around eight people seemed few and far between. So, this 2004 was becoming more and more interesting to us, especially because the price was less than we had anticipated paying and was well within our price range. This is probably because it has 87,000 miles on it, which is a little high, but these things are supposed to last until 250,000 if you keep them well-maintained.

We still weren't at all thinking of buying, but we took it for a test drive and discovered more bells and whistles and by the time we got back, we were interested enough to sit down with the sales guy, which led to some negotiating and consulting on the phone with Sacha's dad, which led to us getting the price we wanted to within about $100 of what Sacha's dad suggested. And so, after much paperwork and several hysterical meltdowns by Talia, who did her very best but was tired and hungry and past naptime, Sacha drove our new (to us) Sienna off the lot and to our house!

We drove it around a little bit this afternoon, when some friends came over and then when we went to a three-family dinner at other friends' house (you guys, if you're reading this, we must do that again!) and I never, ever thought I would say this, but I am in love with this vehicle. I love all the stuff it can do, I love the space, I love that we successfully negotiated a good price, and I love, love, love the idea that we can use it to drive our three kids around come springtime!

Since we are now proud Sienna owners, we have to include a clip of the Swagger Wagon ad that we think is so funny. Enjoy!