My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings » prius

Save A Station Wagon, Ride a Minivan

Lisa — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 11:44:01 +0000

My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings - A day in the life of a busy mom . . .

Okay, corny title, I know. However, we love our minivan. It was one of the best purchases we ever made. It is especially nice for trips like we are doing this weekend up to Green Bay. We have plenty of room to haul all of our stuff, the stuff I’m bringing for my sister (Will’s clothes that he has outgrown), and on the way home, we are picking up a new bed for Will. Now, you can’t haul a bed in a little bitty car, can you? I think not!

Our next van may be a Toyota Sienna. We already have a Prius (yes, we have averaged 60 mpg in that baby at times), so we know what a quality brand Toyota is. Best of all, there are toyota sienna special offers happening right now. Who doesn’t like to save a couple of bucks? I know I do! I also love that you can get moonroofs in the minivans now. I love a stylish ride! Plus, who doesn’t want a back-up camera. Bill has that on his car, and it is pretty sweet.

What do you drive? Is it a minivan? A Prius? A *gasp* station wagon? What do you look for in your vehicles?

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On The Road Again

Lisa — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 11:45:23 +0000

My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings - A day in the life of a busy mom . . .

Can you believe this crazy Chicago weather? It is hard to believe that summer is right around the corner (though that teaser we had of 90 degrees has really thrown everybody off — myself included). Thinking about summer makes me think about our awesome New York trip we’ll be taking this summer!

Now, we luck out that we are able to buy new vehicles when we shop. (We also have an excellent credit union that offers great financing on both used and new vehicles. When we bought our Prius, they beat Toyota’s financing by 5%! Needless to say, we went with them instead of Toyota Financing.) Bill puts on 70 miles a day right now, so for wear and tear along, he has to get new. However, I have driven many austin used cars myself. The hardest thing about a used car though is finding a good quality one for the right price. That’s where sites like I Want To Buy Used come into play. You are able to navigate the site quite easily and search for the perfect vehicle for you and your family.

Do you buy new or used vehicles? How do you shop for them? Online or in person? What features do you look for?

Worst Week Ever

Lisa — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 16:31:43 +0000

My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings - A day in the life of a busy mom . . .

I’ve been busy, so I’ve not gotten a chance to post this. However, here we go . . .

Our worst week ever start on June 25th. We were heading to Wisconsin for our first camping trip as a family. Everybody was excited. Except for the car. We go to turn on the car and all we heard was “click click click”. Now, remember that our other car is a Prius. A hybrid. Let’s just say you can’t jump off those (actually, if you look at the owner’s manual you can, but to replace a Prius battery it’s like $5,000, so we weren’t about to try it). I found a neighbor home (which is amazing in the middle of the day), and we tried jumping. No can do. Nothing worked. Now, at this point, we are all in the van and its packed. We are screwed. I took Bill’s car and ran and got a new battery. While I was gone, Bill took the old one out. Luck was on our side at the battery store, and I bought the last battery they had and drove home. Bill puts the battery in and the radio and most of our electronics in the van were out. Bill figured it was a fuse, so we got and in the car and went.

We weren’t even driving an hour, and Madison had to go to the bathroom. We stopped at a gas station and I took the kids to the bathroom. Since we were there anyway, Bill filled up the car with gas. That ended up being a good thing. For some reason, everything worked after that. We thought we were in the clear. Little did we know –

Friday night it stormed. That wouldn’t be so bad except we were in a tent. And there were 50 mph winds. At one point, Bill and I were holding up one side of the tent. The good news is that the tent didn’t tip over and we stayed dry. Saturday night it stormed. However, Sunday morning was the whopper. Here are a few pictures:

Good times. At one point, we were lifting the tent, so the stream could go underneath. Sooo you’d think this was the end of it — not quite.

We get home and Madison is covered in mosquito bites. It’s about 8:50 pm and I ran to Walgreens to get some AfterBite. What I didn’t know was that they had mopped their floors and didn’t put up a wet floor sign. You can guess what happened next. I didn’t fall but I twisted my ankle (and ended up at the dr Monday to make sure nothing was broken). But my week got even better on Tuesday.

Bill and I were sitting at dinner and he goes “Lisa, your eye is really red”. Well, I ended up at the eye doctor that night, and I had pink eye too!

Thankfully, the rest of the week went better!

The New Car – The Prius

Lisa — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 14:24:59 +0000

My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings - A day in the life of a busy mom . . .

I finally have some pictures for you:

About that new car . . .

Lisa — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 03:08:42 +0000

My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings - A day in the life of a busy mom . . .

Remember that Prius we went on the waiting list for back in July? Well, we had one false start about 3 weeks ago when they told us our car was in. However, when we got there, it was the wrong car completely! Needless to say, we were not happy campers. However, there really wasn’t much we could do besides complain. Well, we got a phone call today (after we noticed the missing mailbox — see post below), and guess what they said? No, it wasn’t for discount furniture. Our new car was in! I was still a little nervous that it was going to be the wrong one again. However, it was the right one! Though things weren’t as smooth as it seemed. The car actually came in yesterday, but our sales guy doesn’t work on Fridays. When they logged the car into the system, they actually mixed up our car with another blue Prius that came in today. Now, our sales guy called and said it was here quite early this morning. I was out and had to come back home. We then fed the kids breakfast, and took them over to Grandma’s house. In the meantime, the dealership was looking for our missing car. From the sounds of things, they had found it shortly before we got there. I can only imagine how bad our salesguy was freaking out. All in all though – we got the car we wanted with the package we wanted. We are happy campers. It was too darn cold to take pictures today, so hopefully I will get a chance to get it up tomorrow.