OK, maybe not- but buying a car is a PAINFULLY long process (feels like labor) and we don't get to pick up our car until today because they're trading from another dealership.

We didn't get the car we originally went to buy, but we got one we like even better!

About a year ago, we decided that we needed an SUV for when it (not often) snows, as well as hauling around our growing family. No, we're not having a baby, but the boys are seriously involved and we know where that heads, right? We also wanted to consolidate two of our vehicles- a sedan and a truck (which we only use to haul things), so we thought an SUV would be a perfect choice. Plus? With gas prices the way they are, what better way to spend our money! (JOKING!)

We wanted a luxury SUV because we like to go on road trips so want to be comfy, plus, well, we're just kind of fussy about how things look. This will be my car (the bearded eye-roller has the corvette and his company car), so I got final decision making powers (weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! I love power!). My big thing was that I didn't want it to look like a soccer mom vehicle. No vans, no stationwagon looking things, etc. It had to look rugged. My original choice was the Lincoln Aviator because it looked like the Navigator (NICE!), but was smaller. I knew that 2005 was the last year that they made the Aviators, so our intent was to buy a used one, and our local dealership had a black one with 19,000 miles. Perfect, except it didn't have a navigation system. Boo!

While test driving, I told the salesdude that I was sad that Lincoln quit making the Aviator because I loved all of the features, AND it wasn't soccer mom-looking. He said that we ought to just take a look at the Mercury Moutaineer because they took all of the Aviator features and added to it. He said it was a really nice vehicle. I kind of turned up my nose at it because I always thought that Mercury was the ugly step-child of Lincoln.

I was WRONG! (yeah, mark your calendars.... I am actually admitting to being wrong.)

We got in one, test drove it, and we were sold. It is *JUST* like the Aviator except the front grill (which I really loved, but I'll get over it) and it has even more features. For example, the 3rd row goes up and down electronically. That's great for me, because there's NO WAY I could reach the seat to pull it up myself unless I climbed in the back. OK- that's not a big deal, but still....

Other features over and above the 'usual' luxury vehicle features (add electronically controlled to all of these-- hee hee):

• Adjustable foot pedals (a must for people with height 'issues')


• Heated seats (a must for me)


• Navigation system (the portable one will be donated to the Corvette)


• Running boards that automatically come out when you open the door and fully retract into the rocker panels when the door is shut


• Two way lift gate (I can open just the window, or the whole lift gate)

The list of cool stuff is long, so I'll stop here. For the sake of brevity, I'll just say that we got it fully loaded (we got the Premiere AWD version). AND? It was the same price as the USED Aviator, which had less features.

Here's what it looks like:

Outside (off the site, this isn't our actual vehicle)


And here's the interior we chose (pretty, eh? That's black leather with camel colored suede inserts):


The whole process took all stinkin' day. To make it worse, we had the salesdude that WOULDN'T shut up. He was telling us stuff that shocked me (but then again, I'm used to that sort of thing happening to me), such as how he and his ex-wife were dating other people while they lived together. SHUT UP DUDE! I don't want to hear it! This was just like sitting in my hairdressers chair, only instead of 3 hours- we were held captive for 7 hours.

But it'll all be worth it when we bring the baby home today.