Ocean Shores - April 2009

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We had to wait until the house was on the market to take our first road trip in "Ruby Tuesday", the VW Vanagon Westphalia camper van we bought a couple of months ago. That finally happened last weekend and we headed out of town for Ocean Shores.

Ocean Shores is where my family went for getaways when I was a kid and I have lots of fond memories of it. I've gone back there all my life every couple of years. It's a typical ocean beach tourist town: a little bit tacky. But it has a miles-long wide sand beach.

We didn't finish up the house until afternoon so we left home about 3:00. We made a stop on the way to get Charlotte a sleeping bag and arrived at the beach about 7:00. We grabbed dinner to go and ate in the van on the beach watching the sunset. It was such a switch from the house prep death march to having fun with the family that I was pretty giddy. Plus it was the first sunny weekend in ages after an unusually cool and moist winter and early spring.


Ocean Shores Video

After sunset we drove to nearby Ocean City State Park and found a spot to sleep. The girls had been asking all day when we were going to put up the pop top, so they were excited. We had a great time playing and getting set up for sleeping and reading stories. I don't think we settled down to sleep until 10:00. Audrey started out in the upper bed with me but after 45 minutes of restlessness she decided she wanted to sleep on the floor.

We all slept pretty well in the van. I went to the bathroom about 4am and was surprised that opening and closing the sliding door didn't wake up the girls. When I woke up to daylight I figured it was 6:30. But when I looked at the clock it was 8:15 and everyone else was still sleeping. Amazing! But by 8:30 we were all awake and laughing.

We went back into town for breakfast and then back to the beach. It was relatively warm (50's) but with a steady strong breeze so coats were required. After playing in the dunes and watching other people fly kites I decided we needed a kite or two as well. The kite store was only a short distance away so I went and bought a Spiderman kite for Audrey and a ladybug kite for Charlotte.

When I unwound the kite strings and handed the spool to each girl and launched the kites they were thrilled. They happily flew their kites for a long time. The wind was perfect for it. As the day wore on it got warm enough, for Audrey at least, to be comfortable in just a t-shirt.

We hung out at the beach until mid-afternoon and then left for home. I sat in the back with the girls most of the way home and we had a good time together.

It was a very successful first road trip in the "new" van. We look forward to many, many more of them. We'd be gone somewhere this weekend but I checked the weather reports yesterday and it's raining all weekend everywhere within driving distance.

OK, That Sucked

In my last post a month ago I implied that March would be spent getting the house ready to sell and would not be enjoyable. It turns out that was an understatement. It completely sucked. Every free moment was spent working on the house.

Alas, we finished on Saturday and the house gets listed today. Yeah! And the listing price is right what we were hoping for. That's great news.

When I've whined to people about the work on the house, they often ask me, "What do you have to do?" So here's a list of what we've done:

Outdoor:

• fix sagging house gutter at se corner
• fix garage man door gutter leak
• fix garage exterior lights
• clean mailbox/porch light/house numbers
• build fence at alley
• replace west gable siding
• replace south window trim x 2
• install gutters on garage north side
• clean up back yard
• extend cement block wall
• level alley & spread rock
• install fabric & river rock in water barrel area
• install water barrel & downspout
• replace kitchen door
• paint green parts of house/touch up blue everywhere
• scrape/sand/caulk/paint all exterior trim
• paint porch rail
• paint front door
• paint underside of greenhouse window
• paint whiteboard on studio east end & around garage door
• paint man doors & trim
• clean gutters
• wash all windows
• install fence post caps
• clean greenhouse window exterior
  
• fill alley potholes
• install sod patch & side sewer cleanout cover

Indoor:

• paint studio trim
• clean up studio
• clean under refrigerator
• replace master bath faucet
• replace master bath light fixture
  
• install/paint kitchen door trim
• caulk kitchen counter
• caulk/clean greenhouse window
• cover junction box above breaker panel
• fix carpet padding downstairs hall
• mount smoke detectors
• grout added kitchen tile
• clean all windows
• touch up all interior paint
• paint new bannister
• finish bannister base
• clean downstairs door
• clean studio threshold

This doesn't include the many hours Carol spent getting the house declutterred, organized, cleaned and staged. She spent many days reuniting toy parts with each other, sorting and triaging kids clothes, cleaning out closets, packing "extra" stuff for storage and many other tasks - all while wrangling two temporarily attention-starved kids.

Whoever buys our house is getting a "perfect" house with absolutely no maintenance needing immediate attention. Perhaps a lot of sellers don't do this much work, but we can't imagine listing a less-than-perfect house in this market.

We finished the last of the work on Saturday afternoon and immediately packed up the camper van and headed to the ocean. We had a wonderful time. As soon as I have some time I'll post photos and video. Now that the house is done, I need to focus on final projects for my two classes. Both are due in two weeks. After my last final exam of the semester on May 8, life should improve dramatically.

OK, I'm done whining now.

This is Great!

A couple of weeks ago Carol and I started getting serious about the long list of projects we have to accomplish to put the house on the market. We are aiming to list it on April 1st. Our weekends now are sunrise to sunset house projects. Combined with homework and vastly increased responsibilities at work it isn't leaving much time or energy for blogging.

I'll post some photos when I can. We've done some great stuff making the house look better - for someone else to enjoy. We're pledging that on our next house we won't let these projects build up, so that we can enjoy the fruits of our labors. Famous last words.

It also means lots of TV and computer time for the girls while Carol and I work. I think that bothers us more than them. Audrey got to play her Lego Star Wars game all day last weekend. At one point Carol checked on the girls and asked Audrey how she was doing. Her response? "This is GREAT!"

Oh well, it's temporary. Once we get the house in shape it'll be time to bug out so potential buyers can see it. We'll head out for some trips in our new camper van! Plus we have a trip to Disneyland and visiting with all the grandparents at the end of April. We just have to put our heads down and get through March.

Audrey the Anatomist

The other day Audrey drew this picture on her own and presented it to Carol.


Audrey explained that in the picture you can see where the food goes when a chicken eats.

Our Vanagon Adventure Begins

As I've mentioned several times, Carol and I have been planning for about three years to buy a Volkswagen Vanagon camper. They are a unique vehicle in that they are "normal" sized (not an RV), they get about 20 mpg, and with the pop-top they sleep four people very comfortably. Carol's parents had an older VW "Bus" camper when she was a child and an American van with a homemade bed inside later on. She has many fond memories of family trips in their vans, and we want to build the same kind of memories. We envision a lot of spontaneous weekends away - no reservations required.

About 18 months ago I started watching them on Craigslist and got be pretty familiar with the price/condition/age range. I read about other owners' experiences on sites like thesamba.com. There is quite a community of people around these vans. The camper versions were sent straight from the factory to the Westphalia company for camper conversions, and were sold that way by VW dealers. They are affectionately referred to as "Westies". VW has had three generations of campers: the original hippie bus until 1978, the Vanagon from '79-'91 and the Eurovan (with US camper conversions by Winnebego) from '92-'03. After a lot of research and asking friends who had owned them, we had decided that we wanted a "Multivan" version, which was only made in 1990 and 1991. The multivan has the pop-top sleeper and the storage closets, but no kitchen equipment. Instead, it has extra seating (for 6 total, plus another optional jump seat).

I say our Vanagon adventure is just beginning because these vehicles are guaranteed to be quirky and require that money be put into them every year. We know that going in. We think of it like our summer cabin, and even if we have to put money into it every year it's much less than a real cabin. And we can go a lot more places in it.

Replacing the engine has been part of our plan all along unless we found a van with an engine that was already rebuilt or converted. Our plan has been to convert whatever van we buy to a Ford Zetec engine. They are a more modern design, were made all over the world (in the Ford Focus) so parts are available everywhere, they have much more power than the VW engine, and a company in Boston sells a conversion kit that is dead simple.

Two weeks ago a nice-looking Multivan showed up on Seattle Craigslist. I emailed the seller about 10 hours after the ad appeared, but the van was already sold. I was very excited by this van and disappointed that it had sold before I saw it. I wrote to the seller twice over the next week and told him if for any reason that sale didn't go through to contact me. Well, what do you know? The sale fell through. Saturday Audrey I went to see the van and take it for a test drive. It had exactly what we wanted: a body and interior in good condition and an engine that still runs strong. I made an offer on the spot and we had bought ourselves a van. Today we met the seller at our credit union to get a cashier's check and I drove Ruby home.

The seller is a woman named Lisa who has owned the van since 2001. She also grew up with camper vans and was very attached to this one (which she named "Ruby Tuesday"). It was hard for her to part with it. It helped that Carol dropped me off at the credit union and Lisa got to meet Audrey (again) and Charlotte and see that her beloved van is going to a good home where it will build happy memories for another generation of kids. I told her I'd send her reports from our trips and that she has visitation rights.

Audrey and Charlotte knew I was bringing the van home after work and they kept asking Carol when it would be here. When I got home we parked the van in the alley and popped the top and we all hung out in it for a little while. We tried out the privacy curtains (all around - completely private inside) and the radio and the girls hung out on the upstairs bed, then danced to the radio in the "living room". We are all very excited to have found the van we've been dreaming about and we're anticipating the fun we're going to have in it.