Anything But a Mini Van

Drew and I have been talking for a while about replacing "Snowball". Snowball is my car. She's a 2002 Chevy Cavalier. I bought my car in December of 2004 after my car at the time died a quick death. Basically, I ran into a bridge on a snowy night. It had everything to do with weather and nothing to do with my driving. Besides the fact that I stupidly took a country road instead of going through town.

Anyways, Snowball has been a fabulous car! I haven't had any trouble with her until January or February when we had to replace the water pump. And she just rolled over 100k miles.

We drive Snowball everywhere. Drew's truck sucks gas like crazy, so he only drives that to work and back. We're both ready for something with a little bit more room. And since kids are in the future, we need something that accommodate car seats and strollers a little more easily.

We went car shopping tonight. I have known that I wanted an SUV type of vehicle. I originally thought that I would want a smaller SUV, something like an Equinox or Escape. After some thought, I think I might want something a little bigger to grow into too.

We first went to a dealership and was immediately drawn to the Chevy Traverse. I think I may be in love!
This car is beautiful. The one that we were looking at has a black exterior with black interior. There are so many features to this car. There are three rows of seats, and the 2nd row has bucket seats. Behind the 3rd row, there is a decent amount of cargo room; enough for a stroller or groceries.

The Traverse had a backup camera, OnStar, blind spot mirrors, rear entertainment package, digital dual temperature control, and many more. It was a beautiful car. I wanted to drive it off the lot immediately.

But, I can't buy a product without looking at some other options. So we went to the Ford dealership. After discussing what we were looking for, we were shown a Kia Sorento. We took a quick drive in that and realized that we weren't crazy about the ride. Then, we moved onto the Ford Edge.

This car offered basically the same options as the Traverse, but only had one row of seats in the back.

I just can't say that I like the Edge more than the Traverse. When I think long term, if we have more than two kids, especially if we have two in car seats, it'll be a tight fit in there. I would rather buy a slightly larger vehicle now, then have to stress about finding something to fit into then.

So, dear readers, do any of you have either of these? Do you have something similar that you love?