Gossie

So, as mentioned in my last post, we recently got a new car.  A minivan to be exact. In case you were wondering, when we had the minivan vs. SUV debate while we were deciding what kind of car to get, it was the sliding doors that sold us on the lowly, much less cool minivan.  Sliding doors are WAY underrated.  Put sliding doors on an SUV and I'm sold.

So here's the car.

(sorry about my lack of photography skills)

It's an average generic-looking black van.  We love it, but you can't deny it's kind of boring.  So we've been racking our brains to come up with something to distinguish our van from others.  Nothing crazy, we wanted a small decal in the back window.  But of what?

Well, long story short, the answer was Gossie.  Gossie is the name of a gosling in the children's book of the same name by Olivier Dunrea.  And I can't say enough good stuff about it.

I remember the first time I read it, we had checked it out from the library (caution spoiler alert!)  Gossie is a small, yellow gosling who likes to wear bright red boots.

(Every day)

But one day, when Gossie can't find her boots, and looks everywhere for them she finally discovers them on someone else's feet!

Now, I must have been dealing with some two year old (or teenage sister) antics at the time, or maybe children's books are getting more realistic these days, because I fully expected Gossie to see someone had borrowed her FAVORITE boots WITHOUT ASKING causing her to FRETFULLY LOOK EVERYWHERE and then get horribly upset and cry and perhaps help Gertie (the boot thief) to get her own boots and then this would be a book about the hard lesson of not taking things that don't belong to you.

But that's not what happened.  The ending was cute and (for me) unexpected:

"Gossie is... a small, yellow gosling who likes to wear bright red boots."

(Almost every day)

Okay, so a pair of goslings admittedly does not make the minivan "cooler"  But I couldn't think of an image I liked more for our car than one that has meaning to everyone in the family, and that to me personally represents keeping calm in potentially frustrating situations.  Will even approved.  He likes Gossie, too.

So we put up this image of Gossie and Gertie

and Reese and Liam danced in front of the sticker while I took photos:

And then we each took closer photos and I am posting them even thought they make my face look chubby:

Now, if you have children or children that you buy gifts for or you like cute things, go buy this book or any others in the series.