Last June, as my due date quickly approached, Nate and I shot each other several emails a day. Our little Mothership with a hot pink stripe (Mercury Villager) was full of children and the coming arrival would force us to either buy a new, bigger van, or drive two vehicles. I hated to give up that thing. For awhile I had a mini disco ball hanging from the rearview mirror. It was like a little rave every time we went to the grocery store. Especially when I cranked up some tunes on my tape deck. It had it's flaws, one being the clicking noise it made every time I hit the gas pedal. Something about the exhaust manifold and hundreds of dollars, but who really knows. Another being the sliding door that didn't open from the outside and the passenger lock that was broken because some little child had poked a stick inside. But alas, we were outgrowing it and we needed to pass it on to another loving family. (Pawn it off on whoever would give us a couple hundred bucks.)
So we emailed and emailed. Nate surfed ebay like it was a mother wave. The subjects of his emails usually read: Vans or Is this the one? or This is it! or How about this one? You see, we had seen the future, and it was bright. But it was only available on eBay. Somehow, in all of our looking, we had stumbled across 12 and 15 passenger vans that didn't have bench seats. These beauties had captain seats and even and aisle. Most of them were old airport and hotel shuttles, but some of them were new and shiny and very expensive. We knew that after seeing the other side, we could never cram everyone into an 8 passenger vehicle. Besides, if we ever had another addition to the family, then we would be back to the vehicle hunt. (no, I'm not pregnant) So the search continued. The emailing continued. My due date approached.
Gemma was due on June 8th. We purchased a 1998 12 passenger Ford E-250 on that day. It was in New Jersey.
As soon as I came home from the hospital with our new little baby, Nate caught a flight to the East Coast to retrieve our other "little" baby. His trip was full of countless adventures. I will twist his arm and see if he will write a short ditty about the labor pains he suffered to bring home the big red Beast. But he arrived, exhausted and in one piece, with our new mode of transportation. Despite the poor gas mileage. Despite the dings and scrapes it has already suffered at the hands of our children, we love that thing. We have put it though the fire in the year that we have owned it. It had been backed into three times, twice in the first week that it was ours. You would think that the sheer size of the thing would make it more visible than most cars. Nope. I should just paint a big target on the side that says: hit me.
We love that we can seat all of the children out of touching distance of each other.
We love the TV and sound system that Nate installed.
We do not love 11 miles per gallon, 15 on the highway.
We love that we can fit five child sized bikes behind the backseat.
We love not having to remember where we parked because it is visible from outerspace.
We do not love parallel parking.
Our baby.
Our other baby. (see how it dwarfs the Chevy Astro)
The inside.
20 comments:
What a great post! I love hearing about new babies, lol. I know I never could have managed without my beast, the big blue. But alas, we have put her to rest with many tears. Hope you have many happy years together.
hahahaha
I love the phantom Luke in the picture of the inside!
(look out the back window)
"Visible from outer space"...I love it. My Hubs wants to get one of these, and we still fit in a regular mini-van.
I really think you need to see if MTV will come and pimp that ride! ;)
Chilihead- Yeah, we even talked about that, but we figured that they we woudn't really intrigue their key audience. What in the world is cool about two people, right around thirty, with six kids and a very large van? I think for them to consider us, we would definately need a couple tattoos and some piercings.
Great van! Wish ours had those kids of seats. We also have a big red beast that we bought 2 years ago. I was pregnant with our 6th and we knew that we knew that our mini van would be too small for us when she arrived. We ended up getting a 15 passenger Ford E350. We pulled the backseat out so now it's only an 11 passenger but it's got a ton of cargo space. Easy enough to toss the kids bikes back there and take them down to the park to ride on the trail.
i gotta admit gemma is much more adorable. think of how many babies would fit in that baby!
We have BOTH a Chevy Astro AND a Ford 12 passenger van! Good rigs!
Mary, mom to many
Ah, Heth, I knew we were soul sisters.
We have a van much like your old one, tape deck and all. I can't roll down the driver's side window because it won't roll up all at once. You have to roll it up a bit, wait five minutes, roll it up a little more, wait five more minutes...you get the picture.
My husband wants a beast, but I've been fighting him tooth and nail. We had a beast once, and I backed over a little red car that was parked right behind me because I couldn't see it.
Sigh.
And that baby picture is so darling my uterus hurts.
Oh what a COOL interior you have!! We have a 1997 Ford 350 van with the boring old bench seats. I can't say I love it as much as you love yours. And I definitely don't love the gas mileage...still, it is nice to be able to spread out on trips, or to offer rides to the kids' friends around town with the extra seats!
Oh how we need one of these...
but our fuel bill would double--and so we continue to cram our 5 kids into the old mini-van. Sigh...
ha!
being able to seat children far away from each other so they cannot touch? i love it. we do that too, and shamelessy upsize vehicles expressly for that purpose.
(unfortunately, we all have absurdly long ape-like arms, so that makes it a bit more challenging.)
Holy Macanole..I will not covet your HUGEGONGOUS VAN!!! Im sending my SIL the link to this story as she is cruising ebay in search of her own red beast...
Your baby...is giving me...baby fever...that would be 6 for us...in a 1300 sq ft home....ohh but the baby is sooo tiiinnyyy....
I used to drive a Suburban and I loved that I could always find it in a parking lot because it was so big! Now I drive a white Dodge Caravan--which is like the most common van around--and I am often walking aisles looking for it, or making my kids remember the aisle #!
I'm drooling! I want one! I was just thinking, (for a very brief second) If I had another baby, we could justify getting one right now! Then I remembered the 3 bedroom 5 kids situation. Drats! Thanks for the pics,though, it will definitly be in the forerunning for our next new vehicle! (hopefully sooner than later)
That is one awesome mode of transportation...it's like your mini-airport...prepare for take off! So Sweet!
You're kids as teenagers are going to LOVE driving that around...
"mom, can I take the car on my date?"
"No, but you can take the van"
"But mom! It's so dorky!"
"Yes, dear, but you'll know she likes you for you, and not for your cool car..."
(can you tell I grew up driving a huge van too? so embarrassing!)
:)
I'd love to have big van too.....if only big vans ran on some kind of plentiful cheap fuel, like human baby manure. ;)....athough that won't won't be plentiful for me until about 9 months from now.
What a great post. I don't htink I even knew that you had lots of kids...how many do you have? Great idea...ebay.
LOL!! I think you should paint "The Beast" in a really cool font.... thad be cool!!
What's really sweet is the flat-screen t.v. Nate installed in there, with the really really LOUD speakers. Except he had to take down the "ENJOY YOUR STAY" sign, I loved that thing. But the t.v. is better.
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