new car smell.

finally.  the saga of replacing our car is over, two & a half weeks after it began.

i never really explained why we were having such a hard time... but if you're in the buying-a-car market right now, you already know.  you see, japan had a bit of a catastrophic event happen in their neck of the woods which caused them to pretty much stop making cars the last few months.  this means no japanese cars which is a decent amount of the cars in the market.  so no new japanese cars means all the other cars are in low supply which meant used car prices were super inflated.  so this complicated things.

long story short, we still didn't really get exactly the car we were looking for because there were literally none of them in the whole west coast for sale.  weird, right?  if you're thinking recipe for ginormous headache, you're right.

anywho, we decided on this... and i'm very happy with our decision:

...a 2011 kia optima.

if you're thinking "a kia-what-ima??"  i was too.  until we started looking at them & i was totally sold.  and this is where i start sounding like a car salesman, but i promise kia isn't paying me any money to say these things.  although, if they wanted to i would totally accept it.

i was sold when i saw what you get for the money.  you get a pretty sweet looking, spacious, fun-to-drive, well equipped ride for a decent price.  the trunk is huge {more than big enough for our massive stroller}, lots of leg room in the back seat {even when sam is driving & the seat is all the way back}, 34 mpg highway, a warranty that is ridiculously long, & a car that is rated higher in 2011 than honda accord by consumer reports.

just sayin'.

but you know who just might be happiest of all of us that this whole car search is over?  p-ray.  because he has spent way more than his fair share of time hanging out in car dealership lobbies, getting his carseat thrown in a crazy amount of strange cars to do test drives,  being held & hushed while we haggled talked with numerous salesmen, & driving all over the state to check out different dealers' inventories.

i feel ya p-ray, i feel ya.

click twice to vote & i'll feel ya too.  wait, that came out wrong.  you know what i mean.