Santa Came Early. He didn't leave anything for you.

Merry Christmas to us, 25 days early. Several years ago, way before kids Kevin and I bought a Chevy Camaro. The car was named Buck and we loved it. It was loud, masculine, impractical, and fast. Then we had kids and graduated to the SUV lifestyle. Recently our car situation changed again (no we didn't sell the kids). Lately I have been the primary driver of Kevin's beautiful Honda Ridgeline truck. I mostly drive the truck for three hour stretches to Sacramento, SF, LA, and Oakland. The truck is fine but not exactly a commuter vehicle. And can I just say, it was clearly not designed for the females, there was no mirror on the driver's sun visor. How am I supposed to know what is going on with the coif? So I now have this:

It even has a light! So dreamy!
BUT WAIT THERE IS MORE! She's a beauty.

We have been car shopping for a long time. All around town test driving, debating, negotiating.... small SUVs, luxury SUVs, huge SUVs (even another Expedition), sports cars, sedans of all shapes and sizes. Finally it seemed pretty clear that what we both wanted was a car that we could have fun driving and keep until our kids graduate from college.

Believe it or not part of our motivation was to save money (gas and car payment). And we were successful on both fronts.


I didn't drive the car until we had pretty much closed the deal. Kevin loved driving it (I closed my eyes on a couple of the turns), his ear to ear grin had me sold.

Our pretty little 525 doesn't have a name yet (the second thing Patrick pointed out after he noted how much he liked the car because it is clean) but it has a space in the garage. Up until last night we were one of those families with a three car garage that only fits one car. All we needed was a little motivation.

I drove the car to work today, it only took me seven minutes to remember how to turn it on!