The Power of Threes...

So, they say that all bad things come in 3's, right??  Well...looks like we've got 2 out of 3 taken care of in this household and I'm wondering what the 3rd will be????  Any guesses???

Ok, so 1st scenario:  a NEW front door.  You know, something we've been meaning to do for 8 years now. A door that won't have cold air streaming in all winter long and one that isn't covering in bugs??  Yup, we finally had the extra $$ this year and forged ahead with creating our New Front Door.  Everything was ordered, door was in the garage and out came the old one..

bye bye old door

My BIL came up and used his personal time to help us with this project (we love when he comes...).  And in went the 'New' door:

He even brought his kids with him... so really it took quite a few of us to 'help' with the door... lol

they are all on break.. lol   Franny was running around so mewhere

Low and behold, this door is completely wrong and not what we ordered.  The outside panels should've been stained to match the door and the windows are actually completely wrong from what we ordered (we noticed this bit after our shock at the staining not being done).  Unfortunately, there was nothing we could do at this point other than put it in and call to see what they were going to do.

And so... a new door has been ordered and now we wait.  Once it's in, we will wait again for my BIL to have another day where he can give us his personal time and expertise to re-install the correct door.

Now, let's move onto to our 2nd major purchase recently... a NEW minivan.  Yup...we knew we needed a minivan with our pretty big family and the truck just wan't doing it for us anymore.  With 4 more payments left, we thought we'd start looking to see if we could find a good deal.  Well, we found a good one and we chose to take it... payments were less than the truck ones and so we are actually saving a little each month.  Not much, but it's very doable, you know??

Mommy's new Toy

I fell in love with this car on first test drive!!  The sales guy put me in it, gave me the keys, and sent me on my merry way.  It had 2 miles on it and  I knew I wanted it.  So, I let hubby do the #'s with our guy and we came to an acceptable agreement...and it was MINE!!  It's such a great Mommy Mobile with lots of amenities that I'm totally not used to.  No more climbing over seats to get kids buckled... no more lack of storage in the back... no more listening to their movies while driving (yes, it has a screen and movie playing capability with 2 wireless headsets...oh thank goodness)... no more driving without being able to put my window down and I can finally play a CD (yes, a CD was stuck in our truck for about 2 years now).  It is a Mom's Wet Dream Vehicle...trust me!!

Oh, and the back of the vehicle has these great seats that fold backwards for seating while tailgating...which we were doing last night..

BUT... it decided that we needed some more things thrown our way, and it completely died on us last night.  WHILE DRIVING it!!!  Yes, it died as we were driving out of a parking lot!!  And yes, it was very late and we were 40 minutes away from home:(   Ummmm, seriously???  This car has less than 200 miles driven on it now, is only 6 days old to us, and has only been driven a total of 9 hours (yes, there is a spot you can see how many hours you've driven the car...how cool is that???)

Here is our Brand New car surrounded by our friends last night...thankfully, they were still there...

We were able to divide and conquer to get this family home and together for the night!!  Here is the note my friend left on the dash board...kinda funny the misspelled word..lol

And here is the vehicle with the 'babies' in it... note 2 out of 3 of their children were passed out as well:

Car update: went to the dealership this morning... guess what??  Our sales guy was ON VACATION!!  ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha..... sorry.... just a little mad laughter going on these days... had them tow the car to their location and am now driving around in a Dodge Journey which they are paying for.  We will most likely not have an answer until Monday about what is wrong with it.  So, we will drive packed like sardines in this vehicle that is smaller than our truck was:(  Oh, yeah, and BTW- these jerks left a little under 1/4 tank of gas in the rental and the p/u location was in the middle of nowhere and not any where near a gas station...thanks!!

Things I am thankful for:

• We will be getting the correct door eventually
• Our wonderful neighbors and friends who shoved their own families aside so that we could shove our own selves inside their cars  (we were spread among 3 other vehicles).. can you imagine if this happened when we weren't with friends who had room in their cars??
• We weren't on our way to Myrtle Beach when it died
• A rental that will fit all of us in it so I am not housebound 24/7
• And definitely thankful for the wine I was able to drink tonight!!!

Next up- as voted upon, a blog about all the things Franny can do that drive me crazy these days.  Finalizing my pics b/c we all know pictures are worth a thousand words, right??

Have a great day!!