We did it!!! Yippy! We got the registration on our truck fixed. All we did was show the lady at the front counter the manual from our truck and explain to her why it was important for us to get it fixed and she got it done!
It only cost us $2 to get the registration reprinted and maybe 15 minutes of our time. If only she had been there the first time we went in to get it handled, I'm sure we would have gotten it done a long time ago.
Sure does feel good to have that done. I think I will now relish the fact that I FINALLY get to check that task off my to-do list.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Friday, February 11, 2011
Time flies
Today is my son's 7th birthday. It's hard to believe that 7 years ago today our lives changed for ever! Every year on his birthday I relive the day like it was yesterday. What memories!
That day is also memorable to my husband and me because it was also the birth of his business. While I was in labor, he had a business meeting that set in motion a business that has allowed my husband to work from home for the last 7 years (Don't worry, I told him to go. I WANTED him to go. You see, with every contraction he gave me this look and after a while it got on my last nerve!). Seven years later, the company is in the process of closing, but it has been a wonderful opportunity for me to see first hand just the kind of man he is. I believe it's also allowed him to be around in a way that many father's never have the opportunity.
As enjoyable as having my husband home for the last 7 years has been, the last 7 years with my son have been spectacular! It has been such a wonderful experience to see him grow and learn (and teach me a few things as well). And more recently to be his "teacher" has magnified that.
I'm excited to see what happens over the next 7 years, but I certainly don't want to rush them.
That day is also memorable to my husband and me because it was also the birth of his business. While I was in labor, he had a business meeting that set in motion a business that has allowed my husband to work from home for the last 7 years (Don't worry, I told him to go. I WANTED him to go. You see, with every contraction he gave me this look and after a while it got on my last nerve!). Seven years later, the company is in the process of closing, but it has been a wonderful opportunity for me to see first hand just the kind of man he is. I believe it's also allowed him to be around in a way that many father's never have the opportunity.
As enjoyable as having my husband home for the last 7 years has been, the last 7 years with my son have been spectacular! It has been such a wonderful experience to see him grow and learn (and teach me a few things as well). And more recently to be his "teacher" has magnified that.
I'm excited to see what happens over the next 7 years, but I certainly don't want to rush them.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Bureaucracy and DMV
I don't know of anyone that enjoys going to DMV, but I think it's safe to say, hubby and I now DESPISE going to DMV. Between the two of us, hubby and I have gone to DMV 4 times over the last 2 months (and there is at least one more trip necessary). We've also made numerous phone calls to DMV as well as Virginia state police and spent hours doing on-line research.
You see, back in December, we traded in our car for a pickup truck, sold an RV, and purchased a travel trailer. That means dealing with tags, titling, and registration for each item (4 "vehicles" in total). We were not supposed to need to go to DMV for the pickup truck because the dealer was going to do that for us. Unfortunately, two of our trips thus far have involved correcting a mistake the dealer made with the pickup truck.
We have been learning over the last week or so that tagging a pickup in the state of Virginia is a very unique task. Personal property taxes are assessed on vehicles based on their value, weight, or a combination of the two. I get that and have no problem with it. My new truck puts more stress and strain on the roads than a Prius, so I pay more. I'm cool with that.
The problem we are encountering is that the field VA uses for tax purposes is also the field they use to specify how much a truck is allowed to tow. Our current problem lies in the fact that when registering our truck, they skipped the field that all the OTHER states use to determine how much a truck is allowed to tow legally. Keep in mind that Virginia does not use that field, so everyone we're talking to (including the state police) says that we will have no problem if we get pulled over. And you know what... that's true in Virginia. Not only that, but DMV claims they cannot put anything in that field.
But, we're not planning on driving in just Virginia. All the other states want that one specific field filled in (you know the one that is blank and DMV says they can't fix). Why's it a big deal to us? Because if we get pulled over and that field is empty, we can be (and probably will be) given a ticket for somewhere in the realm of $3000 - $5000. Can you say OUCH!?!
We were finally able to get someone to agree to redo the title and registration if we can prove that it was done incorrectly. We've gathered the proof and we are hopeful that when we leave DMV next time, that things will be in order.
We will be SO happy when this is all over.
You see, back in December, we traded in our car for a pickup truck, sold an RV, and purchased a travel trailer. That means dealing with tags, titling, and registration for each item (4 "vehicles" in total). We were not supposed to need to go to DMV for the pickup truck because the dealer was going to do that for us. Unfortunately, two of our trips thus far have involved correcting a mistake the dealer made with the pickup truck.
We have been learning over the last week or so that tagging a pickup in the state of Virginia is a very unique task. Personal property taxes are assessed on vehicles based on their value, weight, or a combination of the two. I get that and have no problem with it. My new truck puts more stress and strain on the roads than a Prius, so I pay more. I'm cool with that.
The problem we are encountering is that the field VA uses for tax purposes is also the field they use to specify how much a truck is allowed to tow. Our current problem lies in the fact that when registering our truck, they skipped the field that all the OTHER states use to determine how much a truck is allowed to tow legally. Keep in mind that Virginia does not use that field, so everyone we're talking to (including the state police) says that we will have no problem if we get pulled over. And you know what... that's true in Virginia. Not only that, but DMV claims they cannot put anything in that field.
But, we're not planning on driving in just Virginia. All the other states want that one specific field filled in (you know the one that is blank and DMV says they can't fix). Why's it a big deal to us? Because if we get pulled over and that field is empty, we can be (and probably will be) given a ticket for somewhere in the realm of $3000 - $5000. Can you say OUCH!?!
We were finally able to get someone to agree to redo the title and registration if we can prove that it was done incorrectly. We've gathered the proof and we are hopeful that when we leave DMV next time, that things will be in order.
We will be SO happy when this is all over.
Friday, February 4, 2011
A tribute to Mom!
Today is my birthday. Yes, I admitted it. In fact, I am willing to shout it from the mountain tops! Why? Not because I am OK with being a year older (I am though), but because I want to take this opportunity to pay tribute to my mom.
You see, some years ago I realized that birthday's are celebrated all wrong. Afterall, I didn't really DO anything on my birthday. My mom was the one who did all the work (ok, maybe the doctors and nurses helped a bit), but all I did was show up. That's why for the last few years, I have given my mother a gift on my birthday. This year, she is in Florida visiting with her mom, but she will be back in a few days (Being that she will probably read this I am not going to say what I'm giving her when she returns).
What I do want to share with you is what my mom has taught me over the last ___ years (I'm ok with being older but that doesn't mean I have to tell you all how old I am). My mom has been a wonderful example of kindness; she is always willing to help others. She is also a very caring person; she has always shown genuine concern for others even if she doesn't know them well or at all. And over the last few years she has showed me what tenacity is all about.
So, on this my birthday, I want to tell my mom that I love her and appreciate all she's done for me and all I've been able to learn from her!
You see, some years ago I realized that birthday's are celebrated all wrong. Afterall, I didn't really DO anything on my birthday. My mom was the one who did all the work (ok, maybe the doctors and nurses helped a bit), but all I did was show up. That's why for the last few years, I have given my mother a gift on my birthday. This year, she is in Florida visiting with her mom, but she will be back in a few days (Being that she will probably read this I am not going to say what I'm giving her when she returns).
What I do want to share with you is what my mom has taught me over the last ___ years (I'm ok with being older but that doesn't mean I have to tell you all how old I am). My mom has been a wonderful example of kindness; she is always willing to help others. She is also a very caring person; she has always shown genuine concern for others even if she doesn't know them well or at all. And over the last few years she has showed me what tenacity is all about.
So, on this my birthday, I want to tell my mom that I love her and appreciate all she's done for me and all I've been able to learn from her!
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Walt's place
Figured out the pictures problem. Enjoy!
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So, we got off the cruise ship and said to ourselves..."Do we really want to go back to Virginia? Or would we rather look around Florida and enjoy the warmth and see if maybe we'd be interested in moving to Florida (we do intend to move South but haven't decided on exactly where)? Guess what we picked? Virginia.
NOT! We decided to stay in Florida for a bit longer. We drove to the west coast of Florida to Ft. Myers and visited with a friend of mine who I had not seen in years. Then we drove up to Tampa and spent some time with my Grandmother and Aunt. Then we decided to go to Walt's place (aka Disney World). We ended up doing Epcot the first day, Animal Kingdom the second day, and Magic Kingdom the third (and final) day.
While at Epcot we learned that our daughter was not as fearless as we thought she was. While on the "Test Track" she decided she didn't like fast rides anymore. Keep in mine it went 60 mph for maybe 10 seconds and the rest was probably no faster than 35 mph. After that, daughter and I ended up doing everything together and Daddy and son went off and did some of the fast rides together. The day was ended with the fireworks and laser spectacular.
The Animal Kingdom was all about my daughter. She LOVES all things animals. The rides tended to be a bit more tame because they were designed to go through animal habitats so there was only one ride she didn't do that the guys did so it was a good day. Animal Kingdom also closes earlier than the other parks which was good because of how long our day had been at Epcot.
Magic Kingdom was of course the favorite day for all of us. We'd all gotten into a groove and had figured out the best rides for each kid. It didn't hurt that they have many more rides to choose from (even with a few of them being closed for renovations - the downside of going "off season"). Mommy also got to ride a few of the bigger rides with son while daughter rode a tamer ride with Daddy.
------------------------------
So, we got off the cruise ship and said to ourselves..."Do we really want to go back to Virginia? Or would we rather look around Florida and enjoy the warmth and see if maybe we'd be interested in moving to Florida (we do intend to move South but haven't decided on exactly where)? Guess what we picked? Virginia.
NOT! We decided to stay in Florida for a bit longer. We drove to the west coast of Florida to Ft. Myers and visited with a friend of mine who I had not seen in years. Then we drove up to Tampa and spent some time with my Grandmother and Aunt. Then we decided to go to Walt's place (aka Disney World). We ended up doing Epcot the first day, Animal Kingdom the second day, and Magic Kingdom the third (and final) day.
While at Epcot we learned that our daughter was not as fearless as we thought she was. While on the "Test Track" she decided she didn't like fast rides anymore. Keep in mine it went 60 mph for maybe 10 seconds and the rest was probably no faster than 35 mph. After that, daughter and I ended up doing everything together and Daddy and son went off and did some of the fast rides together. The day was ended with the fireworks and laser spectacular.
The Animal Kingdom was all about my daughter. She LOVES all things animals. The rides tended to be a bit more tame because they were designed to go through animal habitats so there was only one ride she didn't do that the guys did so it was a good day. Animal Kingdom also closes earlier than the other parks which was good because of how long our day had been at Epcot.
Magic Kingdom was of course the favorite day for all of us. We'd all gotten into a groove and had figured out the best rides for each kid. It didn't hurt that they have many more rides to choose from (even with a few of them being closed for renovations - the downside of going "off season"). Mommy also got to ride a few of the bigger rides with son while daughter rode a tamer ride with Daddy.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Cruzin'
When my parents mentioned in late November that they were going to book a 6-night cruise to the Caribbean in early January, hubby and I decided we would join them. Why not? We're homeschooling and we wanted an excuse to go where it was warm.
Our initial plan was to take 3 days to drive to Ft. Lauderdale since we need to drive a little slower pulling the camper. When we decided not to take the camper we changed our plans to drive down in 2 days. This saved us one night in a hotel but also gave us an extra day to get our camper and stuff moved out of my father's building (which it turned out we needed).
The kids did surprisingly well considering we drove 500+ miles the first day and just under 500 the second. Of course the DVD player didn't hurt. We knew we were going to be doing a lot of traveling, so for Christmas we got the kids DVD players. What's cool about them is that the DVD players can play the same movie or they can play different movies. When you have a boy who likes to watch Bill Nye DVD's and a girl who likes to watch animated movies it's great!
When we went on our anniversary cruise we decided we were going to wait till our youngest was 6 to take them. Obviously we took them a bit earlier than that. To be honest, the 4 year old did really well! The 6 year old was a different story. Just about every time we tried to take him to the kids program he would get clingy. Apparently there were a few kids in the class who like to make fun of him. I guess my son has not had to worry about such things before because he's always been the tallest kid in his class (on the cruise ship he was in the class with 8 year-olds). This is obviously something we need to work on in the future, but it made the cruise a bit difficult.
It's safe to say that our families favorite thing about the trip was an "excursion" we took to a turtle farm in Grand Cayman. We booked it with them directly which allowed us to save some money. My parents were on the cruise as well so they went with us. I think having all 6 of us there was extra special.
Hubby and I (as well as my parents) also went on a behind-the-scenes tour of the ship. We got to go into the galley (kitchen), engine room (the room with the computers not the actual engines), food storage, laundry, and the bridge (among a few others). Unfortunately, for security reasons we were not allowed to take our camera, but we did get our pictures taken with the captain. If you like to know how things work behind the scenes, I would recommend doing this tour, but be warned it's pricey and it fills up fast (there were 18 slots in our tour and it filled up in 3 days with minimal advertising).
Will we take the kids on another cruise? Yes. Will we be doing it anytime soon? Probably not. Before doing so, we need to get the clingy thing worked out and I also want to do some research to make sure we pick the right ship and itinerary (we went to one port where I really wish we hadn't taken the kids off the ship). Oh, and we need to save up some serious money.
Our initial plan was to take 3 days to drive to Ft. Lauderdale since we need to drive a little slower pulling the camper. When we decided not to take the camper we changed our plans to drive down in 2 days. This saved us one night in a hotel but also gave us an extra day to get our camper and stuff moved out of my father's building (which it turned out we needed).
The kids did surprisingly well considering we drove 500+ miles the first day and just under 500 the second. Of course the DVD player didn't hurt. We knew we were going to be doing a lot of traveling, so for Christmas we got the kids DVD players. What's cool about them is that the DVD players can play the same movie or they can play different movies. When you have a boy who likes to watch Bill Nye DVD's and a girl who likes to watch animated movies it's great!
When we went on our anniversary cruise we decided we were going to wait till our youngest was 6 to take them. Obviously we took them a bit earlier than that. To be honest, the 4 year old did really well! The 6 year old was a different story. Just about every time we tried to take him to the kids program he would get clingy. Apparently there were a few kids in the class who like to make fun of him. I guess my son has not had to worry about such things before because he's always been the tallest kid in his class (on the cruise ship he was in the class with 8 year-olds). This is obviously something we need to work on in the future, but it made the cruise a bit difficult.
It's safe to say that our families favorite thing about the trip was an "excursion" we took to a turtle farm in Grand Cayman. We booked it with them directly which allowed us to save some money. My parents were on the cruise as well so they went with us. I think having all 6 of us there was extra special.
Hubby and I (as well as my parents) also went on a behind-the-scenes tour of the ship. We got to go into the galley (kitchen), engine room (the room with the computers not the actual engines), food storage, laundry, and the bridge (among a few others). Unfortunately, for security reasons we were not allowed to take our camera, but we did get our pictures taken with the captain. If you like to know how things work behind the scenes, I would recommend doing this tour, but be warned it's pricey and it fills up fast (there were 18 slots in our tour and it filled up in 3 days with minimal advertising).
Will we take the kids on another cruise? Yes. Will we be doing it anytime soon? Probably not. Before doing so, we need to get the clingy thing worked out and I also want to do some research to make sure we pick the right ship and itinerary (we went to one port where I really wish we hadn't taken the kids off the ship). Oh, and we need to save up some serious money.
Monday, January 24, 2011
I'm BAACK!!!
In Virginia. Yep, you read that right. It's late January and we are in Virginia... in the cold. Yuck!
I'm sorry I have not been updating you as faithfully as I would have liked but I will briefly explain what has happened over the last few weeks and will then give you more details over the next few days.
As I've said in previous posts, our goal was to get the camper ready so that we could take it down to Florida for a while. Well, the date we were working with was Jan 5. That way we had 3 days to drive the camper to Ft. Lauderdale before we left on a 6 day cruise to the Caribbean. We had a lengthy list of goals and aspirations for the camper before we went and as we got closer to the date we were deciding which things could be done while "on the road." There were a few things we knew we had to get done before we left including the flooring, a new toilet, and a state inspection. We were able to get the Pergo installed in the camper (which my husband told me after the fact was said to be impossible by every forum he'd read). By the way, it looks SO much nicer now. Replacing the toilet was easy. But when trying to get it inspected, we found that the emergency braking system and the brake pads and shoes needed to be replaced.
Normally that would not have been a problem except we found out 1 day before we needed to leave and we had to order the parts. Not only that, but we'd been storing the camper in a building my father had been trying to rent out for over a year. Needless to say, he found a renter that wanted to move in immediately so we were forced to scramble to get everything cleared out. This made things a bit more complicated for us, but we are VERY happy that he found a renter.
We'd also been storing some old computer equipment from my husband's company that is in the process of closing. He's been intending to sell it on ebay (and he's been successful selling the things he's listed, he's just been pressed for time to sort through everything). That meant we also needed to find a place to put all of that (as well as the stuff we want to keep but not take in the camper).
Ultimately, we decided to drive to Florida (without the camper) for the cruise and an additional week to visit friends and family in Florida. We will probably be in Virginia for 2 - 3 more weeks as we work on selling the computer equipment as well as working on the camper some more. We now have time to do a few of those things that we were going to do "on the road" which probably means they will be done better too (always a good thing when thinking resale).
Now that I've caught you up on why I dropped off the face of the earth for a while, I'm going to go do some of those things you need to do when returning from vacation... laundry, grocery shopping, unpacking, and in my case school for my 1st grader.
Details and some pics of the trip will come soon (once I've gotten the pics sorted).
I'm sorry I have not been updating you as faithfully as I would have liked but I will briefly explain what has happened over the last few weeks and will then give you more details over the next few days.
As I've said in previous posts, our goal was to get the camper ready so that we could take it down to Florida for a while. Well, the date we were working with was Jan 5. That way we had 3 days to drive the camper to Ft. Lauderdale before we left on a 6 day cruise to the Caribbean. We had a lengthy list of goals and aspirations for the camper before we went and as we got closer to the date we were deciding which things could be done while "on the road." There were a few things we knew we had to get done before we left including the flooring, a new toilet, and a state inspection. We were able to get the Pergo installed in the camper (which my husband told me after the fact was said to be impossible by every forum he'd read). By the way, it looks SO much nicer now. Replacing the toilet was easy. But when trying to get it inspected, we found that the emergency braking system and the brake pads and shoes needed to be replaced.
Normally that would not have been a problem except we found out 1 day before we needed to leave and we had to order the parts. Not only that, but we'd been storing the camper in a building my father had been trying to rent out for over a year. Needless to say, he found a renter that wanted to move in immediately so we were forced to scramble to get everything cleared out. This made things a bit more complicated for us, but we are VERY happy that he found a renter.
We'd also been storing some old computer equipment from my husband's company that is in the process of closing. He's been intending to sell it on ebay (and he's been successful selling the things he's listed, he's just been pressed for time to sort through everything). That meant we also needed to find a place to put all of that (as well as the stuff we want to keep but not take in the camper).
Ultimately, we decided to drive to Florida (without the camper) for the cruise and an additional week to visit friends and family in Florida. We will probably be in Virginia for 2 - 3 more weeks as we work on selling the computer equipment as well as working on the camper some more. We now have time to do a few of those things that we were going to do "on the road" which probably means they will be done better too (always a good thing when thinking resale).
Now that I've caught you up on why I dropped off the face of the earth for a while, I'm going to go do some of those things you need to do when returning from vacation... laundry, grocery shopping, unpacking, and in my case school for my 1st grader.
Details and some pics of the trip will come soon (once I've gotten the pics sorted).
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