I can't believe I'm saying this

I have a 2004 Ford Expedition.  See, I had a Suburban when we lived in Hawaii, and it was huge so we traded it for a Rodeo, which turned out to be a bad decision because the week after we traded it I found out I was pregnant with Owen.  But then the Rodeo turned out to be a lemon, so we took it back and got an Explorer.  It was one of those Explorers with the third row seat in it and we thought it would work, but those cars have no room behind the third seat.  Not even enough room for a stroller.  Maybe a pair of shoes, but not much else.  So in order to fit groceries in the car you had to put the third seat down, which meant all three kids had to sit in the middle row of seats.  Annnddd, turns out when you have three kids under the age of 5 you need three carseats and (QUIT LAUGHING OR I'LL KNOCK YOUR HEAD OFF-YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE) three carseats will not fit across the middle seat of a Ford Explorer.  

This was around the same time Scott deployed to Afghanistan, so I did what probably a good 80% of army wives do when their husbands deploy and leave them with all sorts of special powers of attorney.  I went out and bought a new, bigger, fancier car and put it all in my husband's name.  That's the story of how I ended up with the Expedition.  

Scott has a Dodge Ram truck.  Yeah, this is a good story too.  See, when he got back from Afghanistan we had the Expedition and we moved to Arizona.  Our friends Brandon and April (I'd link to their blog but they are super special people with a password protected blog and I'm not allowed to give out the password willy-nilly) lived across the street and Scott rode with Brandon the entire time they were in school there.  Right before we moved to Texas we decided to buy Scott a car so we bought a used Nissan Xterra.  Well, that car turned out to be a lemon.  If you maybe are starting to see a pattern here I will go ahead and agree that we have kind of bad luck when it comes to cars.  I don't even think we made one payment on that car before we took it back.  We ended up getting a Toyota Tacoma truck, one with a backseat so all three kids fit.  Oh yeah, and then I got pregnant again-but don't blame me, it's what I do best!  

Somewhere along the way I decided that if there was going to be a vehicle sitting in the driveway that we were paying for it should probably be a vehicle that our entire family could all sit in at one time.  And that's how we ended up with the Dodge Ram.  

All this leads me to my point, which is:  For the next year there will be a vehicle sitting in my driveway that I am paying for that nobody is going to be driving (my Expedition is paid off).  Which leads me to this conclusion:  I really don't need that truck.  So my thought is to trade both my car and Scott's truck in for one vehicle.  There are a lot of other factors that are going into this but they are secret and we are not going to talk about them right now, especially in the comment section, EVERYBODY GOT THAT?  Anyway, my thinking was to go out and get a new Expedition, because I love my car so much it hurts to think of parting with it, and the only thing that made it bearable was the thought that I could get another one just like it, only a newer and shinier one that smelled like a new car instead of french fries and sour milk.  

Now God help me, and I can't believe I'm even contemplating this, I can't believe I've even allowed Scott to bring this up and actually argue the pros and cons with me, but I've agreed to go test drive some (GULP!) minivans.  Oh, the humanity!!  Anyway, let me say that if I'm going to be tooling around in a minivan it's gonna be the sweetest damn minivan you've ever laid eyes on.  I guess there's something to be said for having a magic button that you press and a door slides open by itself and kids just hop in and then the door slides shut and you get in and drive off.  Also, who wouldn't like some hidden storage bin in the floor that you can just lift open and rake all your crap into?  And three different climate zones?  REALLY?  Did you know you can have three different types of weather happening in the same car all at the same time?  Oh, and you can even get a minivan nowadays with a kitchen table in it.  What the hell?

You know, it's not working.  I was beginning to cross the line and then my mother said "So both my kids are going to drive minivans?"  How can I let my mother down again, especially after the whole birthday present fiasco?   And to make matters worse I talked about it in front of the kids and they actually want a minivan.  They think it would be so cool.  What is wrong with them?  I have spent a lot of time and effort trying to raise cool kids.  In an Expedition.  With leather and a DVD player in the ceiling and XM Radio and a cool Army sticker on the back window.  And I buy those kids all kinds of stuff and they are turning on me.  I can't put stickers on a minivan!  Cripes!  The only thing worse than a minivan is a minivan with stickers, especially the stickers of the stick people and the animals that represent each member of your family.  Man, I hate those.  Oh please no jokes about how all the members of my family wouldn't fit on the window of just one minivan because there are just so many of us BECAUSE I KNOW.

I've been fighting my destiny for a while now.  Let's all vote.  New Expedition or minivan?