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When my husband and I were first married, we lived in a baby one bedroom house in a tiny little town in western Iowa.  We had a one butt kitchen and and a one cheek bathroom (at best) that was basically in the living room. Bathroom privacy? Forget about it.

Married young, by today’s standards, we knew (we hoped) babies danced in our future.  In the meantime,  we had football games to attend, relaxing couples vacations to plan, a home to buy, school to finish…babies were down the road…for when we were grown ups.

To match our tiny house, our tiny town, our tiny kitchen…we had a tiny car.  A two door little speedster, Mazda MX6.  It was a great car for a pair of newlyweds to tool around in, doing what newlyweds do…flitting about at quiet breakfasts, afternoon drinks, followed by long naps, evening movies and dive bar basketball games.  It was a stick shift, of course.  Back then, we had nothing much to do with our hands but shift gears and drive.  Perhaps an occasional neck rub for the poor, “tired” (we didn’t even know what that was) driver but otherwise, shifting gears made us feel free and fast.  Ahem…yes, I said a neck rub as the other thing we did with our hands…get your head out of the gutter, this is a family blog…    🙂

It was a really cool little car.  And as we would come to know, it was really the beginning of the end of all things small in our life.  For the Good Lord had so much more in store for us than a two door stick shift.

(Photo credit: Mazda Motor Corporation)

Oh yes, we evolved…like everyone.  We moved from our sweet little ride to a more sensible four door Mazda Protege 5…that’s a little grocery getter for those of you lacking car knowledge, a little baby station wagon.  With two little rascals added to the mix by then, it worked.

From there, we evolved even further, more sensible still…transitioning to an SUV, the standard family suburban vehicle.  You know, that vehicle everyone buys when they aren’t ready QUITE ready to admit that they really should be buying a….(shhh….fancy people don’t like to talk about it. You know what it is, it starts with “mini” and ends with “van”).    With three little shavers in the back then, that SUV was just fine for this family of five…for about five years.

After that?  Well, after that, shit got real.  With #4 in the making, we  had no other choice.  We bowed our heads, swallowed our pride, turned in that “still sorta cool SUV” for a mini van.

That’s where the story usually ends right?  Young couple trades in their two door stick shift for a progressively larger car until eventually, they submit to “the man” and end up in a mini van.  Oh yes, that might have been where the story ended.  But that’s not how we roll.  (See what I did there?)

When sweet baby #4 was just 5 months old, the good Lord blessed us with not one, but TWO more little loves.  Oh yes, what once was a family of 5 became a family of 8 in the span of about 14 months.  After hyperventilating in the ultrasound room, the discussion of “what will we drive” started soon after.  The answer? Two cars.  Which is exactly what we have done for the last year and a half.  Family night at the pool? Load ’em both up!  Christmas at Grammy and Grandpa’s? I’ll follow you.  Vacation? Girls car, boys car (see below)

In fact, we had never driven anywhere together as a family in one vehicle.  But,  it worked.  It was fine.  We had transportation, we had a reliable way to get where we needed to go.  But…we never had the opportunity to talk.  If you are married, you know what I mean right?  Some of the best talks happen between the right hand shoulder and the divided highway.  When else are we forced to sit and just be together?

So that’s when it happened.  The search began for the Beast. The mother of all vehicles.  Sure, we could buy an 8 seater…and never be able to bring a friend or family with us anywhere–never be able to say, “sure, hop in with us, we have room”.  A family of 8 in an 8 seat vehicle?  Well, the kids would have not have even had room to break wind.  (Wait, maybe we should have rethought this after all…)

All of a sudden, the memory of that two door little MX6 leapt into our heads…our newlywed bliss rolling along the Iowa highway, feet on the dash, Dave Matthews Crush on the built in CD player…moments of carefree wonder.  But as soon as that memory crept in, away it went.  For the blessings that were to about to fill our latest vehicle evolution would burst the seams of the Hindenburg itself.  We wouldn’t go back to that MX6 for a moment…well, maybe for just a moment 🙂

You know how I whipped out that curse word before (for shock and rebel value of course) and said that shit got real? Well, this weekend shit got real to the 100th degree. We rode together as a family of 8 for the very first time…in a vehicle that still pends a formal “name” because somehow referring to it by it’s color (you know, the red car, the gold car) doesn’t do it justice.  This vehicle is the Mothership of all family vehicles, it seats 12 souls and stands well over 7 feet tall.   The Rock.  The Battleship.  The Supernova.  This vehicle is the physical manifestation of all that has changed in our world since that little two door speedster…the evolution of transportation, the evolution of what carefree means to us, today.

It is as big as the love that fills it.

And that’s a whole lot of love.