Good Ol' Heylia

Heylia provides wine touring comfort for toddlers.

As our trusty Volvo, a massive thing we affectionately call Heylia (it's a Weeds reference), nears ten years old she is sadly starting to show her age. Certain functions, like control lights that no longer light and power seat memory that no longer memorizes, are gone and there are a few new moans and groans that will inevitably mean costly trips to the mechanic. A friend recently asked about a bubbly grumble coming from the air vents and I told her that Chris just likes to say it's those pesky baby unicorns again. Ignorance is bliss, right?

Heylia has been with us through our biggest milestones to date: our first condo, adopting Granby, several moves (our beast can haul an entire three-seater sofa), countless road trips, bringing Eloise home from the hospital and many, many weddings. Even though poor Heylia is always covered in a thin layer of muffin crumbs, has a little "eau de wet dog", and goes through gas a bit quickly for my liking, she is incredibly comfortable, hauls anything and everything and is all ours. Clearly I'm attached.

Our Volvo has been good to us but, realistically, even good things come to an end. As we near the ten year milestone, I feel a little sheepish admitting we've started seeing new vehicles. We're looking for something brand new or no more than a few years old that will come without the worry of costly repairs to an old car. We're looking at smaller, more fuel efficient SUVs and even a stylish station wagon (really, not an oxymoron) and as exciting as it would be to have a vehicle with fancy bluetooth, in dash navigation, and a back up camera, getting back into Heylia after a test drive still feels like home. She smells like home too.