Our first minivan!

We've finally taken the plunge and fully committed to suburban soccer mom America. That's right, this week we bought our minivan!

We had done a lot of research into what we wanted, so it was really just a matter of waiting until something showed up that we wanted. And over the weekend, we found the perfect Honda Odyssey for our family. Nothing super-fancy, but it's a used, pre-certified car that will be perfect for taking kids to soccer games, going on play dates, and moving harps. The only problem was that it up in Marysville, an hour drive away! So Amit take Tuesday afternoon off, and Marinda and Jacy came and got him from work after gymnastics for a drive up to see the car. We saw it, liked it, and Amit drove it home while Marinda took Luke art class!

Some may say we're crazy for buying the first van we saw in person. The same thing happened when we bought our house, and the same thing happened with Amit's job. But maybe that's just the kind of people we are. Besides, the kids LOVE the van. Jacy was really excited about it from the moment we saw it. Even the test drive was a treat, because the salesperson said we would drive around in a circle. Jacy responded "Circles!?!? I LOVE circles!!! Circles, circles, circles!" They were also super nice and got is ice cream to sweeten the deal while we were signing papers. When Luke saw it, he was mesmerized by the fact that the back seats can go down. He even wanted to get in and out of the car through the trunk when the seats were down! The kids also got a kick out of the fact that we can call people on the phone through the car (I know, we're really behind the times).

Funny story - that night after getting the van we decided to go out to eat to celebrate. So we decided to go to Mod Pizza. Traffic was terrible, so we spent about half an hour getting there. As we got close to the restaurant, we saw the cause of the traffic jam - a trailer had come off of a truck and was blocking half the road. To keep going, we had to get into the left turn lane and then drive over the divider to get back to 'our' lane. Thankfully, our new van passed its first test with ease and we managed to get to Mod Pizza, eat dinner, and get the kids to bed not too terribly past their bed time.

The kids enjoying the space! So much space! 

Our new van!

Other than that, life is moving on. Marinda is 32 weeks tomorrow. We had a bit of a scare this week because Asher stopped kicking for about a day. Marinda went in and got tests done and everything's fine, he just had moved positions. Since then he's been kicking away. Marinda jokes she's in an abusive relationship - with Asher (though we're pretty sure she made the same joke the last two pregnancies...) Marinda also had her baby shower yesterday. She said she got the two things she wanted - waffles and hanging out with her closest friends (that live in Bellevue/Redmond at least). 

Luke is counting down the weeks until school is done and until his birthday, which is the day after the last day of school. He is still loving art class and is getting better every week. Jacy is well...Jacying. Singing, dancing, being silly - all the things a 3 year old should be doing. Amit is happy that he has his own car now, and is excited to enforce strict no food rules to keep "dad's car" super clean.

Other fun stories:

•Jacy did a dance performance for us Monday during/after family home evening! Luke wanted to be a part of it, so he played the piano for her to dance to. We had some special help from our neighbor Zoe who was hanging out with us.

•Sunday evening after Amit made dinner, there was a decent amount of smoke in the house. It made a pretty cool effect with the sun shining through the windows, and Luke wanted to catch the sunshine.

•Jacy made some pretty awesome crafts in preschool this week! Apparently they learned about pets so she made a puppy dog hat. She also made a lion puppet/mask! 

•We should also mention that Luke made a puppy dog puppet. But for some reason we don't have any pictures of him with it, so we'll have to get one next week!

•Couple things with this picture - first off, Marinda decided to splurge and get the kids new PJs (okay, okay, it's not really splurging. But the kids think it is!) Luke got Minecraft creeper PJs and Jacy got some new dinosaur PJs. Then, since Jacy is taking dance lessons, Marinda decided to show the kids her old dance shoes. They got really excited and started dancing in them!

•Amit taught Luke some Karate Saturday morning! Luke thought it was great and he's super-excited to start Karate in the fall. Later that morning, he made a tinker toy bus and it was a karate bus!

•Both kids are madly in love with Baby Asher and have even started singing songs about him. We haven't caught Luke singing on camera yet, but we got one of Jacy singing part of her song (it goes "Baby Asher, Baby Asher, Going to Sleep", but she mostly just sang the "Baby Asher" part while we were recording.

•Luke had a reading test in school this week, and his teacher was so happy about the results he sent us a message. Apparently before the test Luke was all sad saying he couldn't do it, but then he started the test and he was actually able to do it and passed with flying colors! His teacher said he was so happy he could dance. It's great having a kid who can read, but even better that he has a teacher who cares so much about him :)