There are few things that impress Mike. I’m pretty sure my book is one of those things, but that’s debatable. The time I told him Audi wanted us to test drive their new Q7 for a week? That’s when I saw his eyes light up.

“Fully loaded?”

“Yep.”

I got Mike’s signature “good work” look. It’s an eyebrow raise, a smirk and a nod all at once. Our current car is the base package so Mike was very excited to try out some bells and whistles.

Mike volunteered to pick up the car on a Friday afternoon. He would pick me up at my office and then we could pick up Mazzy together from a playdate down in Tribeca. “Look how cool this is,” he said as soon as I got into the car and pointed to the Multimedia Interface (MMI) on top of the dashboard which flipped from a map to GPS navigation through a touchpad. You could also switch from a regular street map to satellite imagery which was indeed— pretty cool.

But the MMI wasn’t what I was looking at. I was taken with the huge skylight that looked like it was the almost the entire rood of the car. “THAT’S cool.”

We got to Mazzy’s friends apartment and I went upstairs to retrieve her. Mazzy is notoriously bad at leaving playdates so I made small talk with the friend’s mom while Mazzy pretended she couldn’t find her shoes.

About twenty minutes later, I mentioned that Mike was in the car downstairs.

“He’s been waiting all this time???” the mom asked, clearly very concerned for my sanity.

“Don’t worry. HE’S FINE.”

I took Mazzy downstairs and indeed, Mike was FINE. “Check this out!” he yelled excitedly. “The car has Apple phone integration! And I can do everything through voice activation!”

Mazzy was excited too. “This car is MUCH nicer. Can we keep it?”

“No, sorry, sweetie. It’s just ours for the week.”

Mazzy also loved the skylight and found the touch-activated light above her seat to be the coolest thing ever. We didn’t tell her about the hidden outlets in the back of the seat that you could use to hook up a video device. As city people, we do not ride around in a lot of different cars and she has no idea there are kids in this world watching movies on-the-go.

Next, we picked up Harlow, grabbed our bags (already packed the night before) and headed out to our house for the weekend.

“I like this car better,” said Harlow.

“We can’t keep it, sweetie.” This was going to be harder to give up than I realized.

“Watch this!” Mike said and used voice activation to access his text messages.

“You have one new text message from Amy,” the car told us. Amy is an ex-girlfriend of Mike’s who he has remained friends with. I am friends with her now too. “Would you like me to read it to you?” the car asked.

“Yes!” Mike shouted back.

“So, when Ilana references ‘Mike’s horrible ex-girlfriends’ in her book, should I be offended?”

Oh my god! I had given her a copy of my book totally forgetting that line was in there, which for the record, totally does not reference Amy! Mike and I burst out laughing.

Mazzy piped up from the backseat. “Daddy has ex-girlfriends?”

Oh boy. This voice activated text messaging could clearly be trouble!

“A long time ago. Before we met, Mazzy.”

The next day, we went apple picking which was about a twenty minute drive to Seven Ponds Orchard in Southampton. Mike always likes to go bright and early before the crowds hit.

The drive there was beautiful and once again, Mike kept pointing out cool new features like a gentle vibration that happens on the steering wheel if you veer out of lane and blind spot monitoring through LED indicators on the driver and passenger side exterior mirrors.

We met friends at the orchard and while I hurried the kids out of the car to start picking apples, Mike grabbed the dad of the other kids to show off the car.

At the orchard, we picked apples and watched as the kids drag each other around in red wagons.

Harlow was particularly at home as the passenger.

When she finally got out, she started collecting dandelions and putting them in my pocket.

Then we all went to the playground to run around, drink apple cider apple cider…

And get lost in the corn maze.

Mike was playing golf with his friend Brian in the afternoon so after dropping him off, I got my first opportunity to drive the kids in the car around myself.

I don’t drive often, so I personally loved all the cameras when the car was in reverse, which showed not just what was behind me (like in our regular car), but also an aerial view of the car so I could see the sides clearly as well. Call me dense, but I still can’t quite figure out how it did that.

I also loved that GPS was integrated in the car because I use it to go almost everywhere when I drive and as a result, I always run out my phone battery.

Being able to call and get directions via voice activation was great too because I’ve definitely been in situations before where Mike is texting me while I’m driving and I can’t answer him and watch where I am going and listen to directions all at the same time.

I drove the kids over to Cowfish in Hampton Bays where they were having a Rubber Ducky Regatta.

There was music, drinks, burgers, a bouncy castle and a good time was had by all.

Afterwards, I picked Mike and Brian up from golf and he was pleased to see the car was still in one piece.

Brian ended up staying over our house Saturday night and driving back with us to the city the next morning. Usually, I would sit in the back between the kids’ carseats and let the guys take the front but I had another idea.

“Hey Brian! One of the features of the Audi Q7 is that there is a lot more room than a standard SUV in the backseat. I think you should test this out by riding between the kids in the back!”

“Uhhhh…really?”

“Yes! It will be great for the post!”

Seriously, there really is a lot more room in the backseat and Brian was totally comfortable. That is, when Mazzy and Harlow weren’t playing American Girl Dolls over his lap.

Brian did take Rebecca’s designated seat, after all.

Mike also told me that he had reclined the backseat a bit which made the kids more comfortable in their carseats and there was more leg room between the front and the back so that he no longer had to deal with them kicking the back of his seat.

Once back in the city, we parked downtown to go to a Gender Revel party at Black Tap Burger.

That’s the place with the amazing shakes and the line around the block.

Before we went in, I asked Harlow to take a pic in front of the car. I swear I did not instruct her to pose but I think she might have a career in car modeling one day.

That night, we parked the car and knew since we were back in the city, we would not be using it as much the rest of the week. Mike was sad.

“Are you sure we have to give it back?”

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This post was sponsored by Audi, but our excitement about test driving the car was purely our own.