Yesterday we had a birthday party for Allyssa at Holland Park.  Allyssa was asked what she’d like for a theme for her party (okay not quite in those terms but she asked), and she chose Thomas.  Not much of a surprise there. While Shane was planning to make a Thomas the Train cake, he ran out of time.

We planned for about 30 people from the RSVPs we had received.  And then the day of the party, we had about half that actually in attendance.  Apparently things came up and some weren’t able to come.  Such is the way life goes.

Allyssa received many gifts and loved them all, she received art supplies and an easel, play dough, bubbles with tons of wands, a collection of polished rocks,  a doll house from grandma, and several Thomas trains among other things.

Today, we just had a quiet family day (well after Shane finished work that is).

As I’ve said, it’s definitely not the world’s best trailer.  There is graffiti on the interior walls, mold in a couple of places, the living room carpet is in bad shape, and the vinyl tiles in the entry way and kitchen have come up in some places.  The only appliance in the entire trailer is an older gas stove.  But it is priced as something we could afford.  In fact, doing the math, with the deal we’re going to get on this trailer, even if we put in $6000 in repairs in the first year we would break even with paying rent at $750 a month for a year.  Then we will be benefiting from our upgrades and expenditures rather than just loosing the money in rent.

Our goal though is to try and be as frugal as possible with what we put into this trailer, so that down the road we can have a down payment towards something else.  Since we have to redo flooring, walls, and kitchen cabinets as well as purchase appliances our money won’t go far.

On Friday, we did some looking around.  We have a quote for appliances, and while we aren’t looking at the top of the line, what we’re interested in would cost us $3,000 alone.  A quick estimate on cheap kitchen cabinets is around $3,000 as well.  And that doesn’t include flooring or new walls.   This all means that our money could go very quickly, and since we don’t have it all up front, it could take a while.

One of the things this means is that as we planned, we will have to do the work ourselves.  We will also have to find some alternatives.  Instead of purchasing all the appliances new, we’ll most likely use FreeCycle or Craig’s List.  Originally, we thought about hardwood floors but then realized that since it’s a trailer, it would make more sense to go with laminate.  Neither of want carpet in the house, and luckily laminate is cheaper than carpet anyway.

As for the cost of cabinets, well, we’ve all but decided to go another direction there as well.  Instead of purchasing cabinets, we’re going to make them.  Shane’s brother made cabinets for their mother a number of years ago, that have stood up to four moves.  Therefore Shane is pretty sure he can make cabinets that would work also, “they’re just boxes.”  We will have to purchase a few tools to make them, but according to some quick math it looks like we should be able to make the cabinets for about half the cost of purchasing cabinets.

Once we close on the trailer, we’ll go in and take measurements.  Once we have those measurements, then we’ll plan out the exact layout we want.  We may make a few changes in the layout, but there are some things that are harder to change then others.  It’s not going to make sense to move the furnace, and while we could change the plumbing the less changes we have to make there as well, is probably the better.

Our plan is to redo the kitchen, it will most likely have a brand new layout, or at least a some updates to the layout.  We are also planning what most would consider a massive island.  We’re thinking about  5 x 7 in size,  which includes overhangs on two sides for seating.  Well, with an island that big in a trailer your not going to have room for a table.

So how do you pay rent and put money aside?  Well, you either find the cheapest possible place to rent… or you try to buy a cheap trailer house.  To this end, we believe we have found something that could suit our purposes.  It’s an older trailer house, 1976 or 1977, a 14×70 with 3 bedrooms and 1 3/4 bath.  It’s very rough right now, but at the price we would be able to go in and make improvements before moving in.  Naturally we wouldn’t be able to make all the improvements we want right away, but enough to satisfy our immediate needs.  Then we would be able to move in and plan to make other changes over time.

If this works out not only would we have the space we need (including an office for Shane), we would also be able to put money aside for a down payment for a home in three years when Shane graduates.  Please wish us luck, we can use all the help we can find.

Today Shane had an operating session, and Allyssa and I had a leisurely day at home.  She hadn’t wanted a nap, but I hadn’t been overly worried since she sometimes doesn’t take one.  But, as one can see, apparently she should have. She was slowly eating her supper, so slowly in fact that Shane had finished his and I was doing the dishes while she was attempting to eat more.  In the few minutes my back was turned she actually fell asleep at the table.

I was very surprised when I turned around and saw her asleep rather than slowly eating her food, so I had to go get Shane who was working on his finals.  After a little bit she woke up a bit, at least enough to lay down on the couch rather than at her highchair.  She never did finish her dinner because she ended up taking a fairly long snooze.  Not to worry though, she ended up having some peanut butter bread later (one of her favorite snacks) and some popcorn.  Unfortunately, I knew from prior experience that she wouldn’t sleep the night through, so I knew she’d be up later and she was.

Allyssa is getting bigger and is really smart too! She knows the entire alphabet and can count to ten, though some days she needs a little coaxing to get through them all. She is also at that stage where she wants to be “naked”, well, except for a diaper, and refuses to wear clothes. She also refuses to sit on the potty so potty training is progressing very slowly, or not at all right now.

Her favorite movie right now is Cars. Well actually, it is Mater and the Ghostlight which is a bonus on the Cars DVD. I think I have seen that over 100 times already. It is kind of annoying too, because every time Mater breaks his headlight she has to scream out “he broke his light!” Oh well, she’s still the most wonderful part of my life right now.

The job market in the area is crap, and although there have been a couple of options, none of them have panned out. So, Laura and I have decided to use my knowledge to build a business. We are working now on a Business Plan and actually have about a half dozen customers already, so it just might work out. The trick will be to actually keep working towards that, and not playing games on Facebook (hint hint Laura).

Shoot, gotta get back to work now. In case you don’t hear from us in the next couple of months, just remember that it is NORMAL to for us to not update the blog, so things must be normal.

So, what was she doing? Filling up the screen with the letters a and z, and of course screwing up the windows so Laura had to move them back where she liked. Yes, this is Laura’s computer, because my brand new Dell has a bad hard drive. You can read more about that and my fun with Dell Tech support on my GrandSlambert blog.

So, while we are on the subject of Allyssa, perhaps an update is in order. As you know she is 2 years and 2 months old now. She is still on the petite side but that it is OK, she is cute. She is also very smart and can recognize most numbers and quite a few letters. Her speech is still a little hard to understand, but she can say a lot of words now. Of course, I love it when she says “I love you”, even if only mommy and daddy understand what she is saying.

Yes, she is two, and believe me she is really going through the terrible twos something fierce. She is very demanding and wants to watch Thomas the Tank Engine all day long. When she does not get to, she throws a screaming fit that you would not believe. We are still trying to figure out how to deal with that, but we know that it is a phase, and we will get through it.

Usually offering to take her to the pool stops the tantrum, but we cannot always do that. She really enjoys going to the pool and has become quite the water baby. Though the pool we have here is not the best, it is large enough that we can enjoy it, and if we go during the day when most people are at work we have it all to ourselves. Unfortunately, during the day it is in direct sun, so we try to go later in the afternoon when the pool is in the shade.

I think we might be spoiled living where we are. Wood burning fireplace, private fenced in back yard, pool and walking distance to just about everything we need. I would have been a fool to leave, and I am so glad we are staying. I just wish we had more room here but it works for now. OK, back to school for me. I just started my second block of classes and have a lot of work to do.

I am going to try and make this the second to last move we make for a while. I am tired of moving and always wondering where my next paycheck is going to come from. So this time I am planning to make this job work long term. I will be working part time while I continue going to school. This will be the second to last move only because we decided to put all of our stuff in storage in Minneapolis and rent a room for a couple of months while we look for a place we can call home for a few years. The timing is perfect, with college students all gone for the summer there are lot’s of cheap rooms available. We’ll be able to save a lot of money this way with no ulitilies and cheap rent.

We originally planned to get a large enough truck to pack all the stuff here in Kansas City, then stop in Wisconsin to get the rest of our stuff in storage there and take it all with us. However, I really don’t want to have to move the stuff in Trempealeau twice, and it’s only two hours away from where we will be so we will likely wait until after Labor Day to deal with that stuff. Besides, our camping gear is there and we will be camping at Autumn Rose in Galesville, WI this September, so it will be near by. It will be nice to get all of our stuff together again, and to have a nice paying, albeit part-time, job that will likely become a full time position, if and when I want it to.

Changes at School

This move will effect the degree path I am following in school. Unfortunately, Minnesota does not allow the Elementary Education degree that the University of Phoenix offers. Though I still think it might be fun to be a teacher, reality has made this decision a lot easier. The highest paid elementary school teachers barely make $40K, and if I am already capable of making near $55K in the IT industry without a degree, think if what I could make with one! I will take a week off of school so we can move and get settled, and start back up on May 29th, with an emphasis on Information Technology, hopefully leading into a Bachelor’s Degree for System Analysis. I will keep you updated as I continue my education.

Since we had an early start to the day and no plans, we ended up deciding to check out Union Station.  Being the train buffs we are we had decided to see the KC Rail Experience.  We are not sure if we missed something of the show or not, but there didn’t seem to be much to the display.  It was informative, but Allyssa doesn’t like standing in one area long enough to listen to the narration, and certainly doesn’t want to stand there while you read a display.  Which is probably why it seemed a bit small to me.

There had been a slight mix up with our tickets and we were able to get into Science City as well.  There was certainly a lot there for children to do, learn and see. It was more for children older than Allyssa but we still found lots to do, and she had a great time.

With the ticket mix up, we were also able to see a show in the planetarium.  I liked what I saw of the show, but by then I was so tired from the early rising and walking all over Science City that I ended up dozing off and missing part of the show.

We enjoyed the day so much, we are talking about purchasing a membership to KC Union Station.  If we go more than 2 times as a family the membership will pay for itself.  Another reason to consider it, is that they have a Half Pint Program which is aimed towards children 3-6.  While Allyssa would be a bit young for that at the moment, she is a very smart girl and won’t always be too young.  Besides the Half Pint program is 1/2 price for members.

While we were out, we also purchased a Play Station 3.  We had talked about purchasing a Blue Ray player, but of the difference in price it made more sense to pick up the PS3.  While we purchased a second controller for it, we haven’t purchased any games for it yet.  We decided it made more sense to get a GameFly subscription and rent the games first.  We also have several PS2 games which we haven’t played since our PS2 died with a drive problem.

Besides all this, Shane recently introduced me to Mafia Wars on FaceBook.  And from there I’ve also seen Vampire Wars and Pirates: Rule the Caribbean!  I’ve found them to be rather addictive.  As you can see we now have plenty to play around here.

Yesterday, as a family we went to the Kansas City Northern Railroad.  It was Sunday afternoon, we hadn’t done much over the weekend and were looking for something different to do.  Someplace on the web, Shane found the Kansas City Northern Railroad and since this is a train family, it was definitely of interest.

It is not an large railroad, but they take you around the area twice for $.50 a ride.  They have a tunnel, S-curve, a wooden trestle bridge, and a road crossing you go over, so as you can see a little bit of everything.  Allyssa went on the ride three times, and would have gone at least three more if we had let her.  It’s a short drive from home, about 20 minutes so we will definitely be going back again.