(remembered from January 2006)

Taking the boys out these days requires a 13 passenger van. I know. I know. Huge, right? We previously had an Expedition. I LOVED my truck. Called her Kong (as in King Kong).

We try to hit Costco once a month. We spend anywhere between 200-600 dollars (of course, once we spent 3500, but that was buying my husband’s dream TV). I like to stock up on meat and quick dinners for those nights when mom has just had enough.

In any event, one day back when we had Kong, we went to Costco and took all the kids with us (there were only four at the time). We are at the register, Roy is putting things up on the belt and I am herding the kids.

“That will be $329, Ma’am.”

I say what I always say to Roy and the kids after a Costco visit. “Wow, you guys are so expensive!”

“Are they all yours?” The cashier is a young woman… maybe 22, 25 tops.

“Yep, all ours! Five boys.” I say this with pride.

“Oh. You poor thing! Are you going to try for a girl?”

See, the first few hundred times I heard this, I just said… No, I’m good. Then Roy or I would joke that our youngest, either Hayden or now Dean, was the try. Now, I just smile and say, “Nope, we’re done.”

Oh. You are wondering why we need such a huge car… okay, so we pay and are walking out. The cart is full, and each of the three older boys has their arms full. I am carrying bags from other stores. We get to the car… the kids all pile in and put their seatbelts on while Roy and I start putting things away. We finally get things put up, and he and I get in. As he is pulling out of the parking lot, I turn around to look at the boys. With the exception of Hayden, who was still in a car seat at the time, each of the boys is holding something in their lap or desperately looking for someplace to place their burden. Addi in his booster seat has the bag from the bookstore. Joey has a box of frozen goods that he is trying to make room for on the floor at his feet. And Corey is looking around in vain for someplace to put a box with snacks and juice from Costco.

“Hey, Roy?”

“Yeah.”

“We need a bigger car.”

A few weeks later we started looking. We did some research, and Roy laid out my options for me.

“You can get an Excursion, a Suburban, or a big passenger van.”

“That’s it? Those are my options?”

“Yep, that’s it!”

Well, I didn’t want an Excursion because Ford was not going to be making them anymore, and everyone has a Suburban around here, so that left only one option… the passenger van it was. We didn’t have to look far, at the time gas was expensive - about $3.50 a gallon - and people didn’t want big cars. We found a Ford E350 at one of the local dealers. They gave us a better deal on a trade-in for the Expedition than we thought they would, so we did our thing and bought Godzilla. That is what I call my big green van of course.

Giant as it is, the van has served our family well. It isn’t the most plush thing out there, but there is plenty of room. For such a big van, it is a relatively smooth ride, and we have yet to run out of room during a Costco trip!