The New Car

At long last, the promised pictures of the new car.

Ta Da!

Just kidding. Thank heavens.

Apologies to those who may like Jeeps, but I would NEVER buy this car. What is it doing in our driveway then, you ask? Therein lies the tale.

The day before Papillon was born, we had requested that CarMax transfer a car up to our local store. While we were still in the hospital we got a call that the car had arrived and was ready for us to look at. Obviously we did not go to see it that day. Mon Amour did, however, head out to test drive and subsequently purchase the car the day after we got home from the hospital. (Can you tell we were very very ready for a new car?)

He test drove it. Loved it. Bought it. And brought it home.

Only it turns out that the old car was only title in my name, so in order to make the sale of the old car official, I needed to sign over the title and take it back to CarMax. No problem, we decided. We would just head back out the next day with the signed paper work. It would be a fun family outing - Papillon and myself would stay in the car while Mon Amour dropped off the paper work. A quick, fun, first family outing.

Problem #1: They lost our original paper work, every thing that Mon Amour had signed the day before. So he got to sign it all again. So Papillon and I hung out in the car for a bit longer than we thought.

Problem #2: Mon Amour returns to the car, goes to pull out of the parking spot, when suddenly, the power steering cuts out and a warning light comes on on the dashboard. Nice. Haven't even owned the car for 24 hours and its broken.

Thank heavens for warranties. We limped it over to the service center (a mere couple of yards away) and asked someone to come look at it. They concluded that it needed to be sent to the dealer since it was under dealer warranty and they would fix it there. Consequently they offered us a loaner car. Hence the Jeep. By the time we got all the paperwork worked out, 4-day-old-Papillon had spent over an hour in the CarMax waiting room. Nothing like a little adventure to start life off right.

And so we drove the car above for a couple of days. Papillon and I's first solo outing to the grocery store was in the car above.

But, before too long the car we actually bought, was returned to us, with a newly repaired power steering pump. Success.

Without further ado, here it is. Our new-to-us blue 2008 Mazda5:

It's like a miniature minivan. We weren't ready emotionally or financially for a full size mini van, but needed something with enough space for Marge and Papillon. So this car has 3 rows of seats (officially fits 6 people, though the people in the back better not have long legs). You can fold flat any combination of seats to allow for storage.

One of my favorite features is the sliding rear doors. It makes it so much easier to get Papillon in and our of the car! And unlike many mini-van sliding door windows that you can only open a slight crack, you can actually rolls these down like you can the front windows. Best of both worlds!

The sunroof was a bit of a random bonus.

We are very much enjoying this car.

When we started car shopping, Mon Amour and I swore we would NOT buy a Ford. We both had Fords before this, and even though, if we were being rational, they were very good cars to us, they both had the same problems and so we were very very ready to be done with those kinds of problems.
So we looked at every kind of car except Fords.
Then we found the Mazda5 and fell in love.
I called my little brother (the car expert) and told him we were getting a Mazda. He approved, but asked "Do you want me to ruin it for you?"
I assured him there was no way he could ruin it for me, so go ahead and try.

"Mazda is owned by Ford"

Oh the irony. It seems we did not make a clean break from Ford, but so far, we are pretty pleased.