Lessons from the test drives...

We've gone on about nine test drives now and looked at dozens of cars, both from private sellers and on car lots. We've narrowed down our search and are *this* close to figuring it out. Along the way, here are some lessons we've learned:

• Smell is important. It's been easy to eliminate choices based on smell. For the record, cars that smell like smoke or pets or overly strong cleaning solutions (which make us question what other smell is being covered up) aren't options for us. :)
• Relatedly, I've made a mental note that when we eventually need to sell any of our vehicles, we should bake cookies and put them in the car ahead of time, lol.
• We've been somewhat amazed at how poorly some people care for their vehicles. Let's just leave it at that.
• The process required a lesson for Micah on negotiation tactics. We had to instruct him to only ask questions while we're *not* in the presence of the seller, lol. 
• Um, our garage may not be big enough for a second car actually. Drat. (We realized last night that the cars we'd narrowed it down to are considerably bigger than the car we're replacing (Nathan's old Scion). Pondering now the purging of the garage and potentially revising our search and starting again and all that stuff.)
• But perhaps the most surprising lesson we learned was that mini vans are really fabulous. ;) Don't laugh. Taking all three boys with us on test drives and having them sit right next to each other in the back seat really opened our eyes to the benefits of having enough room for each boy to *not* be sitting directly next to another, lol. Let's just say that sitting all in a row = noise and commotion that we really hadn't anticipated...wow. ;) (Fortunately, this will just be a second car, not the primary mode of transportation altogether...whew.)

And that's where our car search stands at the moment... :)