Last night we had a couple of firsts, both of which came as part of the preparation for having our third child in a few weeks. We bought our first Honda and our first minivan. Between this and Aidan getting involved in sports, now you truly can call me soccer dad.
Pamela is away all weekend at a conference, so I get put the first miles on it! Of course, she expects me to explain the features and buttons when she gets back.
Click on the thumbnail to view all sixteen photos on Flickr. If you want to comment on a photo, then you will have to use or create a free Flickr account.
7 Comments
nice van! i never could quite picture myself driving one, but i have been incredibly grateful for the space in mine on many occasions.
Did you really splurge and get it new?? It’s looks really nice and I’m sure you’ll enjoy it for years to come! Have fun playing “soccer dad” this weekend- I’m sure we’ll have fun in Atlanta!
Amber: Pam feels the same way you do…and she never even saw herself in a station wagon either until we bought the Subaru. Now that we’ve made the switch I am not sure when we’ll be back in a classy sedan again.
Holly: We did, though with a lot of searching and negotiating between multiple dealers we got it at a decent amount below invoice. I’ve heard that’s hard to do on a Honda and would have probably been impossible w/o the 2007’s sitting on the lot (this is an ‘06). We found a few used 2005’s and 2006’s, but they either had really high mileage (e.g., 62K) or were loaded to the brim (i.e., as expensive or more as new). Hopefully we’ll have this for at least ten years. That’s how long we’ve had the Altima. We’ve had the Subaru for six and I guess I’ll be driving it until I’m forty!
Ours is a 2004 and Im still trying to figure out all the buttons. What accessories did you get? You need a nice long road trip to try everything out.
sweetness. at our place in life, such things are way cool. if/when kiddo #3 comes around here, we’ll likely be following in your footsteps. how’s the passenger leg room for you? on earlier models we werent fitting too well.
aunt mary: We did not order any accessories at the time of purchase, but the car does have a built in rear entertainment system. I like this much better than most aftermarket installations, because the DVD slot often end up under the seat or in the overhead unit. Our screen flips down from the ceiling, but the DVD is loaded in the dash.
I do have a list of accessories that I would like to get: 1) All weather floor mats, 2) a trailer hitch (for a bike rack only…towing requires additional transmission/cooling system parts…and I have nothing to tow yet!), 3) XM radio receiver/antenna (the radio is “XM ready”), 4) some sort of iPod integration unit and 5) a subwoofer. The first two I will probably do soon. The other three may or may not come…and if I do get them, I’ll probably do all three at once (while I have the dash apart).
bobw: Beginning with the 2005 model the Odyssey is much bigger. I parked it next to first and second generation Ody’s yesterday and the difference is remarkable. I’m 6′4″ and way comfortable in both of the front seats. I haven’t spent a lot of time in the second row, but I don’t recall being cramped. In fact, with the driver and passenger seats all the way back the kids still can’t kick the back of the seats (something they could do in the Subaru with ease).
bobw: I will add that the front passenger leg room, since it’s a mini-van, is not a stretch out kind of seat. It’s more upright and for a tall guy like me the dash does touch slightly on my left knee (but the driving position has no issues). It’s also not nearly as bad as some of the other vans I sat in. For whatever reason, a lot of cars these days have less front passenger leg room (maybe they’re cramming extra stuff in there?). The last car in which I truly felt that I could stretch out–in either seat–was my little two seater Fiero.