January 2006 Archives
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Now, for the rest of the story...
Last Wednesday afternoon, we picked Henry up from soccer class and drove north. An hour and change later, we arrived at Sims Honda in beautiful Burlington, Washington. We met Don Grant, Sims' Internet sales guy, and took delivery of a 2006 Honda Odyssey. Yup, a minivan.
Our Passat is only three years old, but after Charlie was born we gradually came to the conclusion that it's too small. With Charlie in a big rear-facing car seat and Henry in a booster, we can't really fit a third person in the back seat. This year, we've been carpooling to preschool, which has meant removing and re-installing Charlie's car seat several times a week. Ugh. Of course, there's also the minivan rule. You know, "when you have your second child, you must buy a minivan." We really had no choice.
So last fall, I started looking into bigger cars, minivans, and even SUVs. It didn't take long for me to narrow the field down to two: the Toyota Sienna and the Honda Odyssey. Henry and I went and checked out each of them, and surveyed the other options again during the Seattle Car Show. The Sienna has a more luxurious and polished interior than the Odyssey, but also has one fatal flaw (a flaw it shares with a number of other contenders): I can't sit in the second-row seats without hitting my head on the ceiling or reclining the seat way back. So Honda it was.
When we were down in California at Thanksgiving, Kathy and I left the kids with Grammy and Grampy and went to the local Honda dealer to test-drive an Odyssey. We were sold. The Ody was quiet and comfortable with great handling and power to spare. As an aside, our rental car down there was a Kia Sedona, which provided an interesting comparison. It was a surprisingly nice van. The interior seemed a little cheap and the engine was pretty unrefined and truck-like, but the vehicle struck us as well designed and well built. I understand the new 2006 will be even better. Kia has come a long way.
Anyway, we decided to buy sometime in the second half of January. I read up on the Odyssey on the OdyClub.com forums and learned which Northwest dealers to avoid. I also learned that unfortunately the Seattle area is not a good place to buy a Honda on the cheap. Others had ventured to Yakima or even Spokane to save some money. I wasn't prepared to do that, but when I started contacting dealers through the Honda web site, I didn't limit myself to local ones. Right off the bat, I got the best quotes from dealers to the south (South Tacoma Honda) and north (Lynnwood Honda and Sims Honda). Sims was by far the best, though, and they even had the color we wanted in stock. A couple of the dealers nearby never did quote a price for me and one didn't reply at all until the day after we bought our van.
We had a great experience at Sims. We agreed on a price by phone and email. When we arrived, the van was ready and waiting for us in their heated and well-lit delivery room (a table along the back wall held an impressive arrangement of fresh flowers). Our salesman reviewed the van's features with us and made sure everything was in order, before we took a short test drive. Back at the dealer, he reviewed a few things in the owners manual before completing his part of the paperwork and passing us off to the finance guy. All the usual dealer add-ons were mentioned, but with no pressure. We were done and out the door in no time.
What about the van? We bought the top-of-the-line Touring model, with the Navigation system and Rear Entertainment System. It's got dual power side doors and a power tailgate, parking sensors, backup camera, leather seats, and Michelin PAX run-flat tires. It has a three-zone climate control system (driver, passenger, and rear). It also has an engine that automatically deactivates three of the six cylinders when they're not needed in order to save fuel. Pretty cool. It's by far the best equipped car we've ever owned. Henry loves it (especially the Rear Entertainment System) and so does Charlie... and so do I.
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What's that sharp looking vehicle sitting in Brad & Kathy's driveway? Could it be? Is it possible? They swore they never would!
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as the title says, my shift keys are missing. both of them. well, the key caps are gone. i can still push the little button and get the shift functionality but my fingers do not want to do that; they keep hitting the return or caps lock keys instead. why are my shift keys missing? (ugh, i had to struggle twice there with that question mark and open parentheses.) charlie exuberantly knocked them off while playing bambam, a program brad wrote when henry was a wee babe. with bambam, when the youngster presses a key, an interesting picture/shape/letter appears on screen accompanied by a child-pleasing sound. the software has many great features, in fact; you can have it use your own photos, for example. brad should release it to the world. anyway, henry loved it, charlie loves it. he is a strong 'un, that youngster. i keep using the word youngster because henry has been calling charlie youngster these days. the 5 year old calling the 6 month old youngster: it tickles me.
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Wow, it's been a long time since I've written anything here. Much has happened. Christmas, the new year, 26 straight days of rain. Another week of rain and they say we'll break a record. It looks like we'll probably make it. Yes, it has been dreary. Those of you who've heard us drone on (and on and on) about how great Seattle is know we've often said the rain isn't that bad. It usually drizzles, you get plenty of "sun breaks," you can still get outside and do things, blah, blah, blah. All usually true. But not this time. This time, the rain bears down in big blotchy drops and it keeps coming and coming, and the sky is dark and oppressive, and you cannot possibly drink enough espresso or eat enough chocolate to make it not matter. Even I am sick of the chocolate and espresso.
On that cheerful note, let's move on! While not sniping at each other (because of our involuntary imprisionment in this house due to the oppressive rainy darkness and because of the extreme mood swings related to all that espresso and chocolate comsumption), we've been enjoying playing chess, doing very large and complicated puzzles, completing sudoku and crossword puzzles, making wagers on how much longer the rain will last... Henry's favorite activities have involved reenacting in great detail every ride at Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure in various media: furniture, lego, duplo, blocks, wooden railways, the car, his hands, his dreams. Speaking of his dreams, he's been talking much more about them lately. He explained that in his dreams a "think bubble" appears; his bed lowers down into the think bubble to get to the world of his dreams (where they have giant roller coasters that even 5 or 6 year olds can go on and Bob-the-Builder marble runs). To get back, he finds a think bubble in the dream world and enters it and then his bed lowers back down into his bedroom. He was interested in helping me dress Charlie today, trying to put on his pants and socks. As he was struggling, he told me in his "I am a little frustrated and mystified" voice that he had recently dreamed that he'd gotten Charlie dressed all by himself but now that he wasn't in the dream he couldn't remember how to do it! I am fascinated by all of this; hearing him describe his dreams and react to them is like a little window into his mind.
Charlie, weighing in at 24 pounds 13 ounces and wearing 18 month size clothes, has learned to clap! He can raise one eyebrow, roll over, sit, inch across the floor on his back by wiggling his body, and communicate clearly via a complicated system of hand gestures, glances, and breathy vowel sounds. And if all that fails, the old standby wailing works as well. He has two lower teeth and tried avocado for the first time this evening. He is a very fun baby, clearly eager to explore the world. Crawling is probably still a little ways off but dexterity in picking up small things has arrived. And I'd forgotten that whenever you think you know how far a baby can reach, you should still add an extra foot to that distance...
So, we are doing all right. Enjoying our time in spite of the rain.
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