We bought a van + practical friends with temperament based seating assignments

WE BOUGHT A MASSIVE VANNNNNNN.

How dumb is it that these are the things that excite when you're seven kids deep?

We've been looking at them for months. Especially since, you know, we had baby Francis and could no longer fit in one vehicle as a family. Taking two cars places was just fine. Really! Not ideal but fine. Even the big kids clambering over babies to get to the back row was fine, too. We could totally have hung on a bit longer. But we are closing in on paying off Kirby's car which leaves us with a car payment sized hole in our monthly budget. That little fact plus feeling kinda bummed that we would be taking two cars to our annual family camping trip to Big Sur plus finding the car we really wanted at a better price tag than we've ever seen sent us making a lickety-split decision to do the damn thing. On Tuesday.

The funny thing was that the dealership was a 2 hour car ride away and Kirby had to work so our only options were to drive together in rush hour traffic (2 hour drive potentially becoming 4) or have him take the train down, which was a 3 hour trip but, no traffic. So, here we be, needing to drive Kirby to the train station to buy a van that could fit our whole family, but we can't take him because... we don't all fit in one car -__-. I admit it took me some time to work out the complex puzzle that was giving Kirby a ride somewhere but we did (cue my dad). Thus commenced Kirby training it from 5 pm-8 pm, walking from the train station to the dealership in the dark of night, buying the bus, and driving it home. I'm pretty sure he still made it in before midnight which is WHOA. He is the man.

On Wednesday, I was installing car seats and having a bit of trouble figuring out who should go where since only one side of the van has a door (which babies where??) and lo and behold, Jenna- in her amazing practical wisdom, thorough knowledge of the temperaments, and desperate need for me to figure my shit out- drew out a seating plan for my kids that ended up being totally perfect. I mentioned that I wasn't sure where to stick people and < 5 min later I got this text:

Hilarious.

Joe and Pete side by side so car seat buckling is as easy as possible. *sanguine *sanguine
Baby Francis closest to the door for easy car seat removal.
Johnny up from so he doesn't get into trouble. *sanguine
Mary in the one jump seat so she can be in on the action and still have her own space. *choleric
Hero *melancholic in the massive 4 person back row, basically alone, far away from Johnny  along with Clem, the other *melancholic.

I owe you one, J.

So, today I spent all afternoon tetrising our camping gear into the back of this massive busvan. And it all fit. IN THE CARGO SPACE. And so do we, with three seats to spare. That means people can kinda spread out. Amen so good I could cry.

Aren't kids in the car the WORST?? I'm SO GRATEFUL they can spread out. Amen, amen.

Big Sur tomorrow!! See you babes on the flip side.