to the shop and back again... hopefully...

This Post was going to be dedicated to the joys of owning a van, a real actual van with 7 seats, power windows,CD player, rear air (not to be confused with flatulence... sorry I couldn't help myself).
Cameron found a "great Deal" in Austin on a Kia Sodona 2005, It cost almost half as much as what we could find at the other places we looked so on Saturday we went for it. Cameron test drove it and it seemed to be running well. so we bought it. The kids were thrilled, I mean THRILLED they were more excited about this van then they were about moving into a house with a garage... and believe me that was exciting!
about half way home the dreaded check engine light came on... and it starts...
we'll take it in on Monday we thought, We being ME and the three kids of course as Cameron would be spending the say at the hospital going through orientation.
The kids begged us to dive it to church the next day, so despite our better judgement we did, What's 3 extra miles on a check engine light going to do anyways... 2 and a 4th miles later the engine died and we rolled to a stop, Cameron tried to restart the car to no avail so he got out in his white shirt and tie and started pushing the van with his entire family in 105 degree heat... I know what you're thinking, "Why didn't you get out and help?" and I would have but someone had to steer and we didn't trust Katelyn to get it where we needed to go. plus I was wearing heels. Thankfully our plight attracted attention and before lone we had two other guys huffing and puffing behind the car as I steered it to the nearest parking lot which also happened to be a Cadillac dealership. Which happened to be closed Sundays.

Katelyn went into super panic mode and was sure we were going to be stranded in our green van forever. the boys slept peacefully in the back... gotta love 1 o'clock church.... after 40 minutes of making phone calls and trying to figure out what to do we decided to walk the rest of the way to church. and get a ride home with someone there and then take care of the van when the dealership opened in the morning. It promised to be a long, hot tiresome walk but fortunately before we even got passed the dealership someone stopped and offered us a ride, what a blessing!

to make a long story shorter, it's Monday now the car has been towed to a mechanic, who it turns out has never worked on a Kia Sodona before but fortunately he can plug the van into a nifty little machine that will diagnose the problem so we know what's wrong with it, but before we get it fixed we are waiting to hear back from the guys we bought the van from to see if they want to fix it themselves, they are of course "out" and will call me when they "get back" I'm sure they have a "you bought it, you fix it" policy but we will see. so I'm just here sitting by the phone waiting for their phone call so I can tell the guys at the shop to go ahead... or not.

whose house is this anyway?

we signed the papers to close on our house today at 9am and as we drove over to do a walk through with Cherri our realtor we noticed a huge moving truck sitting in the driveway and the seller came out to greet us all in a fluster wondering if we were flexible on the moving in time, We said we could work with him how much time did he need? He thought he could be done about 5:30pm, Then Cherri asked if we could do a quick walk through, he went inside to check with his wife and came back asking if we could come back in an hour because his family was still sleeping.Still sleeping? at 10am when the house was suppose to be ready to move in at 9am? We didn't say that of course, we just agreed and came back at 11:30am.

The house was a mess, they are most of the way moved out but there are still things in each room needing to be packed and then the house has to be cleaned, he had some relatives there to help with the move but they were all standing around staring at us as we walked through OUR house. anyways to say the least it's been frustrating, we thought we could move in this morning after closing and we had the missionaries lined up to help us unload the truck at lunch time and now I don't think they will even be out of there until late tonight, and they need to have the placed cleaned and the carpets will be wet until morning so we will be staying another night in a hotel. I think it will all work out fine in the end, it's just frustrating.

I wish they would have called to let us know they were running behind. It would have been nice to know before we got all of our help lined up. anyways that's what's happening in our life, it was a good drive, the kids were good, we invested in a portable DVD player and the kids were captivated, except Grant who wanted to be the driver and was very put out each time we bucked him into his car seat.
we are all ready to be settled, I'm pretty sure my kids think we are going to live in a new hotel every night for the rest of our lives, this is our 4th one in 4 days. they love it.