Cruising the Town in New Van

I mentioned the van a bit last week but heard there was some confusion on it’s story. Heath’s Aunt said we could have it, if we could move it. Jon and I moved it and they gave us the tittle and everything and so know we own a van. It took us a few days to get it legal as it needed a new windshield and battery and 3rd brake light and windshield wiper. Yesterday I came into work early expecting to take a long lunch and go to the DMV to get it all registered. Getting it insured took a bit longer then expected and Heath did not get the prof of insurance until about 3:50pm. Once I got it and printed it out I was off to the DMV. I was 15th in line and there were 5 tellers so I moved through pretty quick. However I discovered I need a receipt that my taxes on my other vehicles was paid up before I could tag the van. So I drove 2 blocks to Raytown city hall and they hooked me up with the receipts I needed and I got back to the DMV at 4:55 (they close at 5pm). I was quickly charged $99 and given tags.

Heath and I wanted to visit a baby stuff store in Waldo that closed at 6pm so I rushed home and honked at Heath to come out she asked me to look in the pond before we go.

(SKIP THIS NEXT PART AND THE NEXT PICTURE IF SQUEAMISH)

I looked and did not see anything at first but got closer and saw something dark floating. Then something else next to it and a whole bunch of things on the other side. Somehow 7 chipmunks had climbed into the pond and then died.

This was weird and on the way to the store we tried to figure it out. We had water in the pond for a month and this had not happened. We had 12 feeder goldfish in the pond for a week and this had not happened. We remembered cleaning a few dead fish out the night before and there were no chipmunks. So we had no idea why 7 chipmunks all wound up dead in the pond. This morning I shoveled them out and no more had jumped in since so hopefully it was a one time only deal.

Heath and I hit up the baby store but it was not as good as we had hoped. After that we headed home for leftover ribs that Heath had wrapped in foil and kept cooking on low heat in the toaster oven for the last few hours. We also had peas, strawberries, salad and baked potatoes. During dinner we watched Breaking Bad.

After dinner I quickly put the new plates on the van, fired it up and Heath took us for a ride. We had planned on staying home and getting a bunch of stuff done but decided to do driving around stuff instead.

We headed to the Babies R Us on 135th

We have been planning our nursery project a lot and keep tossing around some great ideas. We had hoped to find the theme and pattern we wanted so we could go to the hardware store for paint. We could not find anything but a blanket of the pattern we were planning on but found another that we may like better. Here are the two top choices at the moment.

http://www.toysrus.com/largeImage/index.jsp?LargeImageURL=http%3A//TRUS.imageg.net/graphics/product_images/pTRU1-4991897_alternate1_dt.jpg

http://s7d5.scene7.com/s7ondemand/zoom/flasht_zoom.jsp?&company=ToysRUsGSI&config=defaultZoom&zoomwidth=500&zoomheight=558&sku=pG01-4800429

We left the store and tried to rush out to Baby World only to discover their Tuesday and Wednesday hours were reduced and they were not open. So we headed to Lowes to look at wallpaper boarders and decals.

We did not like any of the wallpaper and walked over to Walmart and saw some nice decals but nothing like what we were looking for.

We hopped back in the van and drove it towards Stooks’ house.

(thats right the back seats fold down into a bed)

On the way we noticed gas getting low so decided to fill up the 35 gallon tank. As we began to put gas in we imeadiatly heard a splashing noise and looked down to see all the gas we were putting in pouring out. We decided not to put gas in since it all was pouring on the ground and headed to Stooks’ anyway.

Once Geoff and Stooks had inspected the van a bit I climbed under with my cell phone light and discovered the problem.

To the left of this pipe leads to the side of the van where the cap is and to the righ is the gas tank. There are two big cracks in the rubber pipe.

So this morning as an expiriment I cleaned off the pipe real good then wrapped the tube in a bunch of electrical tape.

I put 4 gallons of gas in and only a little bit leaked out. However gas is pretty corrosive and I expect the tape to fall apart quickly. So I’m going to start hitting up part stores for this piece and see if I can get a new one. If not I’ll have to take a trip to Pick and Pull. Unless someone knows of an easier way to fix the cracks in the rubber pipe with something that won’t disolve after contact with gasoline?

So we caught up with Stooks and Geoff and looked over Geoffs new Ford Escape and then headed home. Heath and I were tired and decided to blow off everything we needed to do untill this morning.

Instead we just got ready for bed.