The Saga Continues

Since it has been some time from my last post about the van, most of you probably think that after the new transmission it has been smooth sailing. You would think...

Let me backtrack a little. We were thinking that we would be able to pick the van up the next Friday after Memorial Day but the part had not arrived yet and they were now expecting it on Monday. Okay. The next week suddenly got real busy for us and we weren't able to get the van until the next weekend. They weren't going to be open when we arrived to pick up the van so we wired the money to them so that there would be no problem--and there wasn't.

Dominic and I left Saturday and dropped the kids off at my mom's house so that she could watch them for the night. They were so excited and I don't think they even realized that we left. We were planning on driving to Seneca Rocks and camping next to the river. Every time we drive by it, we always say that we would like to camp there some time.

We arrived in time to have dinner at the little country restaurant and then headed to find our campsite. As we were driving around I looked ahead on the little dirt road and told Dominic to stop because there was a big snake in the middle of the road. He stopped and I told the people in the tent next to it about the snake. The man walked over to it and said "Copperhead". What! And we were going to be camping here. For those who don't know, I'm very very afraid of snakes. I have awful dreams about them and spiders. Anyway, we went on our way and ended up camping not too far from the dreadful snake. I was absolutely looking around constantly for him and any of his friends. When Dominic and I got home, he searched for Copperhead on the internet and that's exactly what it was.

We ended up having a wonderful time at the campsite. It was beautiful with an awesome view of Seneca Rocks and we were right next to the river. It was a nice kids free evening.

Here are some pictures from our campsite.




You can see the river right behind Dominic.


Isn't it great how good Dominic is to pose for all of these pictures.


The next morning, we packed up the tent and headed to Elkins to pick up the van and have breakfast with Dad before he headed to church. I was so glad that we were actually able to visit with him while we were there. For Memorial Day weekend, we were planning to watch him and his band play music that Friday night but we didn't quite make it.

So back to the van. When we picked it up, I told Dominic that it acted kind of funny when I first started it. He drove it around and said it seemed fine to him. We left Elkins and the van seemed fine to me then too. We stopped a few times before making our way back to mom's house to pick up the kids. Once we were there, we visited for a little while, then loaded the kids up in the van to leave and IT WOULDN'T START! By this point, we just felt defeated. After everything we had gone through to get this van fixed and home and it didn't even get us home.

After Dominic tried a few things, we then unloaded the kids, loaded them in Gloria's car (That we had for two weeks. Thanks Gloria!), and headed home leaving the van at mom's house. Dominic had Monday off of work and we had decided to not even think about that darn van for another day or so. At least, thank goodness, it broke down at mom's house and not somewhere else.

So Monday, we got a call at about 11 a.m. It was mom's boyfriend, Ernie. He had that day off and had gone over to mom's house to take a look to see if it was something he could fix. He asked us if we wanted the good news or the bad news first. Well, Dominic said we might as well go for the bad news. Ernie said that the van needed a new fuel pump. Then he said that the good news was that he already fixed it and it was ready to be picked up. What a relief!! It was so awesome to get a call to tell you that it was all fixed and we didn't have to worry about anything. Awesome. He even offered to drive it down to us after mom got off of work so that we didn't have to get the kids out again for the long drive. How nice. But we couldn't let them do that. We loaded the kids up yet again and picked up the van. It's been home for some time now and is still running!

The day that Ernie fixed our van, Monday, was also mine and Dominic's 13th wedding anniversary. We knew the 13 had something to do with our bad luck. When we asked Ernie how much we owed him for fixing the van, he said, "Happy Anniversary."

Thank you to everyone that helped us out during that time. The advice, the help, the offers to help, the calls, everything. We sure do have some great friends and family. A huge thanks to Denny and Gloria for helping us out with the transmission and letting us use their car for two weeks.

From the Mouth of a Two Year Old

A word that Nathan says all the time now is "Nope". It's so cute when he says it too because he kind of drags it out. A few weeks ago he had a bad fever. We were in the van one day when his fever was a little better. I checked his forehead and said, "Nathan do you still have a fever?" He said, "Nope. Gookie fever." He was done with it and was trying to pass it on to Brookie.

He is always quick to let me know that he is a big boy now. If I ask him if he is mommy's baby, he says "No. Me big. Emma baby." Emma is what Brooke named one of her baby dolls. He also tells me, "Mommy, me big. Gookie mall (small)." For everything that Lenny does that he wants to do, he tells me that he is big. The other day we were at a playground. Lenny and Brooke were going down the big slide and loving it. Nathan would just stand at the top, then walk back down, and later go back to the top. I told him to go down the slide. He said, "No momma, me mall". It was so cute!