The Bralley Trolley

The big news in our house is that we've sold our Camry and purchased a Toyota Highlander! We've been talking about moving from the Cam to an SUV for about 9 months but we wanted to see how things went having two kids in the car before we spent the money on something different that will most certainly increase our gasoline bill.

Seven weeks of driving the two kiddos around in my car led me to the conviction that we would be much more comfortable with more room. Then buying a double stroller that barely fit in the trunk (I had to removed the front lap bar which was a big hassle) sealed the deal. We spent a couple weeks looking online and talking about what our preferences were.

We wanted something with a 6 cylinder engine. Something I would get about 20 miles per gallon driving. Something with 50K miles or less. I would prefer something with third row seating that could be put down easily but could be used on those occasions we have family and friends riding with us. I wanted leather interior because I've found it to be super convenient with Betsy. Riding rear-facing she gets mud on the back of the seat and sometimes spears various snack foods and leather wipes clean easily!

We found two listings at a dealership in Austin, one for a Lexus RX 350 and one for the Highlander both in our price range. We test drove the Lexus first and it was fabulous. We drove the Highlander second and I felt like it drove the exact same. And I was pleased to find the Limited Highlander model had almost all the bells and whistles the Lexus did! A 10K dollar difference in price sold me on the Highlander as it meant we wouldn't have to finance. Ben was leaning toward the Lexus, but I was leaning toward the Highlander and as I'm going to be the primary driver we went with the Highlander.