Washing the Van and Camper

While it rained on Sunday, the kids, Dear Hubby, and I washed the van and new camper. The kids were so excited to be "playing" in the rain. We figured they were going to get wet anyway, so might as well let them wash the van in the rain. By the time we got to the camper, it had pretty much stopped and the sun had come back out. The pictures of the camper are the after shots. Compare the front of the camper to those in the previous post and you'll notice a huge difference. Dear hubby thinks that we increased the value by at least a $1,000 just by washing it. It does look a quite a bit newer now that it is clean. That goes for the van, too. We've owned it for a little over a year and this is the first really good scrubbing it's had. The kids were really impressed that the van looks white now and not gray. It rained again today and the three year old said, "Mommy, can we get our bathing suits on and play in the rain, again?" Maybe we've stumbled onto something here. Washing things in the rain actually motivates them to want to work! Who would have thought it?

Our New Camper (or at least new to us)

After getting up at 5 am, packing up most of the kids (our oldest was spending the day with friends), we left for eastern Kentucky around 6am. I was a little surprised at how foggy is still was at 9 am when we reached the Appalachian Mountains. A short time later, we arrived at our destination to look at a used hybrid travel trailer. We've had a pop-up that has served us well over the past five years, but we've had three more kids since we got it from dear hubby's mom. Now, with baby Elias due in September, we need a bigger camper if we are going to continue to go camping and all sleep in the same camper.

So our adventure this morning was in search of said camper. After much research, telephone calls, and watching e-bay and craig's list like a hawk, we went to go look at this camper. We waited 45 minutes for the owner to show up, then inspected the camper for nearly 2 hours, told the couple we'd take it, then proceeded to spend 1 hour fixing the hitch so we could take it home with us. Correction: Dear Hubby spent 1 hour fixing the hitch while I tried to occupy the kids with bubbles, drinks, and snacks. Finally at 1:30pm, we were ready to hit the open road with our new-to-us camper. We got about twenty minutes down the road before a tire blew out on the camper. That slowed us down about an hour and a half because we couldn't figure out how to get the spare tire off the camper to change it. When dear hubby did get it off and put in place, we realized it was flat, so we had to go to a gas stations to get air. At the gas station he determined that he had put it on backward, so again he changed the tire. Just to be safe, we stopped by a Tractor Supply Company to pick up another spare. Thank God we didn't need it and were able to get back home safely with no more problems with the trailer or van.

I think we will be replacing all of the tires this week just to make sure that this sort of thing doesn't happen again. Even with the new tires figured in, we got a really great deal on the camper. Dave Ramsey would be proud! I am so excited that it is big enough, light weight, and it fit into our budget! Once we get it cleaned up, it will be happy trails and sweet dreams for the kids while we camp. I am excited to have such a nice camper to take with us on our next vacation.