Keeps on Going and Going . . .

Ok, so in 2002, we bought a Chevrolet Suburban. Now I did not want this car, it was too big and too much of a gas guzzler. My hubby was the one who kept insisting we needed the extra row.

However, while driving to Miami for our annual Stone crab trip, I had a 3-year-old sitting right next to a  4-month-old in a Jeep Cherokee. Now the oldest daughter wanted to love on the baby and kept touching her, squishing her cheeks, and making her cry (not a 100% sure it was all loving but let's just go with that). By the time we had driven to Ft. Myers (barely an hour and 45 minutes from home), I was convinced we needed a bigger car. Thus the Blue Burb, as we sometimes call it.

Now I will say, I have really come to appreciate this car. The most important reason is that there are three rows and still enough room in the back for lots of anything and everything you need to haul. Plus, if someone rear ends the car, they are not in the back seat with my family - big plus!

So my sister and I took a quick trip to Atlanta to head to the Gift Mart for our on-line store Two Chic Gifting Gals. Going to market is super fun, especially when we discovered the vendor giving away tumblers full of wine!! On the way home from Atlanta, something big happened, or at least it was exciting to me. No explanation needed:

200,000 freaking miles! That's amazing and a heckuva lot of miles!! After dropping off my sister and picking up my girls (a row for each of them!), I started thinking about everything this car has been through:

- driving Girl Scouts to meetings for 9 years

- 8 Girl Scout camping trips

- 10 years of school carpools 

- driving family members home from the hospital after three surgeries

- tons of trips to Gainesville for Gator games

- driving to West Virginia with 6 family members for skiing for my parents 40th anniversary

- driving the Masellis and Hutchisons to Kentucky for the Gator game

- being hit in the front by a KY Wildcat trying to jump the car and instead jumped the curb

- trips to New Orleans, Tennessee, Atlanta, and yearly pilgrimages to North Carolina for fall leaves

- my 15-year-old daughter learning to drive (if she can handle this car, she can drive anything)

- my 15-year-old daughter stopping at her first red light and being rear-ended TWICE by some crazy man (no damage to our car)

- too many to count field trips

- 2 sleepovers at Sea World

- 1 sleepover at Busch Gardens

- hauling furniture, supplies from Home Depot, you name it

- home to a lizard for one, very long, week

- trips to Disney, concerts, the beach, dinners out, church

- no tickets (knock on wood)

- no major accidents (2 fender benders not our fault)

- backed into a pole and scrapped a stop sign (both not visible to driver and both the driver's fault - that would be me!)

- has a J carved in the passenger's, backseat door (oldest daughter to blame for that)

- still has a VCR installed in the ceiling (yes, we were trendsetters at the time!)

- brought home our new puppy (now she's 9)

- no major repairs

I imagine in the next year, the Blue Burb will conk out on us and no longer want to take us where we want to go but all-in-all, this car has served us well. While I will happily go look at new cars (who doesn't love that new car smell??), I will not happily look at the price tags. We have not had a car payment in over 9 years! Oy vey! Off to go load up the car for a sleepover with 10 teenagers at the Tradewinds, but that is for another post!