Cruise control is my friend.
I even have it on my manual transmission Civic.
A word of caution about AWD: while it may help you go, it will do nothing to help you stop better. I am perfectly comfortable in my 2WD vehicles because I figure if I can't go in the weather, then really I shouldn't be driving in it at all. Too often I see AWD vehicles in a ditch, because the fact that they could go made them overconfident and when they lost traction, they were going too fast for road conditions. That said, I don't totally blame you for wanting it, and I'm sure there are some situations where AWD could keep one from getting stuck in the first place. Just a reminder to drive within the limits of the road conditions.
We looked at a few 3-row SUVs and quickly decided that we didn't like any of them. The ones in our price range were the smaller SUVs, usually available as either a 2-row model or a 3-row. The trunk area was tiny and the third row leg room was non-existant, pretty much across the board, because they stuck a third row in the trunk of a 2-row vehicle.
So, we went minivan. I've heard that in general, with kids, you want an Odyssey or Sienna. Our budget dictated which generation of those two vans. From there, I narrowed down which features we wanted to pick which model, and from there looked at other features to pick which year and trim level. They were all very important features to me, not just preferences that I sorta thought I would like. I ended up with a pretty specific vehicle that I was looking for: 2006 or 2007 Sienna, 8-passenger, LE.
The first stop we made was a car lot and the last stop we made was a car lot. The first time, we looked pretty quickly at several models, looking at second and third row leg room and carseat room, and trunk space, primarily. Then I went home, got on the internet, and did research. After I had it narrowed down to the two minivans, we went to another lot that had all four (7- and 8- passenger versions of Ody and Sienna). This time we narrowed it down to the 8-pass Sienna. Then back home, back to the internet, where I researched differences in the years. Even within one generation, there are some differences. Wikipedia, depending on the vehicle, is pretty good about outlining the differences. Then I did more digging and picked out a trim level. From there I went to Craig's List and we bought private party.
With a private party sale, you have to be a bit more cautious and do your due diligence but you can end up with more vehicle for your buck than you can at a dealer. That trade-off was worth it to me.
For me, the key factors were 7 vs 8 passengers (and the practicality thereof), airbags, towing, and cruise control. We went with the 8 passenger because that gives us the option to put all three across the second row, stow the third row and have large cargo space. Some of the older years in our range had side torso and side impact airbags as an option rather than standard, so to save myself the hassle of figuring out which ones were which I just ruled out the years where it was not standard. Then towing, we want tow capacity which they actually took off in later years, so that further narrowed the window. There were four trim levels, two of which only came in 7-passenger, so that eliminated those two trim levels. And one of the remaining trim levels didn't have cruise control, so that eliminated a third. Any other features that were significant to us were the same across the board so they weren't a factor in the decision-making process.
So basically, my advice is to figure out your ballpark budget, go speed-shopping at a few dealers, do internet research, go back to a dealer or two to narrow it down further, do more research, then go look for your vehicle. If you decide that you don't want to be quite as specific, you can always leave your options more open than I did.
HTH!
