Early this summer, I was contacted by Ford's Marketing Group with an interesting proposition...Ford was offering the chance for a few blogging moms to take a brand new Ford Taurus X on a family vacation. They were interested in our thoughts about using the Taurus in real-world situations. Ford is confident that the new Taurus is the ultimate vehicle for moms, and they wanted us to spend two weeks with a new Taurus X, seeing if our experience matched their expectations.

I volunteered immediately. New car smell! Whee!

When the driver dropped the Taurus X in my driveway, I was impressed with the good looks right off the bat. Gone is the bubble-butt of the older models - Taurus X is a handsome cross-over vehicle. I chatted in the driveway with the delivery driver:

"And you are with who?" he said.

"I'm a mommyblogger!" I announced.

"And you're doing what with this car?" He looked at me over the top of his clipboard, with his eyebrows crunched together in the middle.

"ROAD TRIP! WOOOOO!" I yelled, with my arms raised over my head. He thought I was kidding.

"Are you a journalist?" He was still not understanding. At this point my kids came barreling through the gate and stood panting by the front of the car, oohing and ah-ing.

I was all "I'm super important. I'm a TASTE MAKER!" and then I yelled at the kids to get back inside the fence unless they were wearing pants, because they can't take a pantless test-drive. And maybe go put on some shoes, and wash those filthy hands before you come and touch this pretty new car.

The driver backed away slowly after handing me the keys, and I chuckled as he drove away with his partner.

I'm a taste maker. I kill me.

Our road trip adventure began as soon as everyone put pants back on. We drove around the neighborhood honking and waving. We went to Target and the grocery store to stock up for the week and test out the trunk. 5 full sized paper bags in a row fit nicely, by the way. It also held three medium sized suitcases and a large duffle, plus assorted gear. I really loved the remote trunk opener and closer.

We drove over to my parents' house, and took them for a ride around town. My mom and dad were both really impressed with the smooth ride and luxury features.

"It just feels solid - this is real quality," said my dad.

"This is so much more plush than my car," offered my mom, who drives a 2003 Honda CR-V.

Back at my parents house, I made my dad stand behind the car so I could test the back-up alarm sensor.

"Don't run down your father!"

"I'm not going to," I said. "I just want to see what it does when I nudge him."

When our original trip plans had to be scuttled due to sickness at our destination, we decided to take a trip to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk to test out the Taurus X on some varied conditions. Freeways? Check! Mountains? Check! Surface streets and stop-and-go traffic? Check!

The first thing we did was set the navigation system with our destination, and pre-load six CDs in the six-disc entertainment console. Then we took a fuzzy picture to commemorate the start of the drive.

We also brought along an iPod, because the Taurus has a handy jack for hooking up iPods and the like. We had a few stations programmed into the satellite radio, but didn't give them much air time, since we also had a DVD queued up for the kids on the built-in entertainment center.

We decided to photograph the navigation screen every time the kids asked "Are we there yet?" and then headed off down the road. I couldn't get enough of this awesome little flip-down mirror:

With a handy third row of seats to keep the "Mom...she's looking at/touching/breathing on mes at bay" we were all smiles as we started our journey south.

Barf-bags at the ready, too... wouldn't want to besmirch those leather seats.

18 minutes into our drive and we've already managed to drive right off the beaten path. Danger! Danger! Turn around! Turn around!

You see this shiny chrome and walnut? Gorgeous right? But those chromed vents sent laser beams of sunlight directly into the drivers eyes at certain sun exposures. Maybe Ford's engineers are taller than my husband and I, but it was squint city for a good hour during the evening commute.

Here's one of my other favorite features on the car - you see that little button in the middle of the dashboard? That's the ejection seat trigger!

I'm kidding. (Ford? The Three Kid Circus Special Edition should have an ejector seat trigger. And a sound-proofed barrier between the driver and the passengers. And maybe auto-pilot. And a photon cannon.)

No, that's a shot of the dash compartment as we approach the Golden Gate Bridge.

And here's where the real road trip fun started.

Are we there yet?

No.

Are we there yet?

Seriously? No.

Are we there yet?

Um? No.

Are we there yet?

No, and our ETA is over an hour from now.

Are we...?

What do you think? Does this LOOK like Santa Cruz yet?

Okay, yes, there are trees. But no. We are not there yet.

And with this traffic? It is going to take a while.

Oh, no. Don't whine.

You hit the ejector button, honey.

Are we there YET?

No.

Are we there yet?

Close.

Are we there yet?

OMG. We are ONE POINT FOUR MILES FROM OUR DESTINATION. STOP ASKING!

Behold. We are there. And it was good.

Aside from the chrome-blinding, there was only one other issue I had with the Taurus X:

If you had either the driver's window or the front passenger window down, even half-way, once you hit about 40 miles an hour, there was a horrible acoustic booming that started up. The entire roof of the car seemed to vibrate, and the loud, repetitive booming was deafening. This wasn't a slight noise - it was really annoying. The fix for us? Drive with the windows up at speeds over 40 miles an hour. Still, for such an well-designed, luxurious vehicle, you should be able to drive with the windows down while running around town without having to deal with sonic booming.

Our trip home from Santa Cruz was peaceful, with all three kids sawing logs and my husband and I enjoying some of our favorite tunes on the fantastic stereo system. When Ford picked up the Taurus X, I was reluctant to let it go. I might have thrown a bit of a fit, in fact.

We were quite impressed with the great handling, sporty looks and ample room for passengers and gear in the Taurus X. With the NHTSA five-star rating indicating that Ford Taurus X is America's Safest Crossover, and surprisingly good gas mileage performance, it is not hard to appreciate the value. We'll be in the market for a new vehicle soon, and the Taurus X will be on our short-list of possible new vehicles for our family.

Thank you, Ford! We really enjoyed our experience with the 2008 Taurus X. For more information on the new Taurus.

Some shots from our trip:

Despite spending several hours in the car, the whole family was eager to ride the horses.

Me and the girls, sitting on another ride. Really, if we could have stayed in a sitting position for the entire day, I bet we would have.

Here's where my daughter demonstrated her mad driving skillz, and made me very glad we have eight years until driver's training.

My husband and son getting ready to ride the train.

In another spectacular parenting decision, I put all three kids on the mini-sized free-fall ride and took pictures while they screamed in terror. Hey, they wanted to... and you better believe I'll tell their therapists that.

We made some great memories, and dyed our tongues strange colors, too. All in all, a great getaway.