Family of Nine Garage Sale for Van Down Payment

Hallelujah we have found a van. AND the fish stick buyer did send us $80 after all. Sports Luxury Motors in North Ridgeville has graciously agreed to "hold" a Mercury Villager (with the fish stick $80 plus $20 of our own) until our tax incentive check comes May 2nd. We still need about $2000 so we are raising it the old fashioned way, hard work.

The picture is one almost identical to ours but at another dealer.

Come out and support our garage sale May 1-2-3 8:30-5pm.

online offerings are HERE.

Tons of kids clothing most .25 a piece. Sizes 3T to 10. Mostly Boys. Some Girls. Limited amount of baby clothing. Books. Coats. Like new backpacks. Baby Bjorn Carrier. Car seats. Kids Shoes. Toys. Bikes. High Chair. Toddler Bed. Happy Days Board Game, Toddler Bike seat (for adult bike), Barbie A Frame house, Winter boots. Linens, Household.

Donations Accepted. PM us for immediate pickup.

All proceeds go to van down payment for family of 9. PM us for directions.

The Mother's Helper

It's times like these, I wish I was Amish.

Today I had the great pleasure of having Catherine here to help us out. I have a home daycare so on days off school, in addition to our 6 youngest children, I have up to 5 additional daycare clients. After last summers big changes to my husband's visitation schedule, I realized that every other full week during the summer with up to 11 kids was going to quickly overwhelm me.

With Kevin's help I located the modern day equivalent of the old fashioned "mother's helper". An ultimate overachiever from the local senior class, Catherine is amazing. Today was a dry run for her. We took a field trip to the NASA Glenn Visitor's Center. If she wasn't scared off, she'll give me a hand entertaining the kids this summer. We decided on a rate of $7 an hour plus $.50 a mile.

I wish I could afford her everyday.

Fire On The Train!

Well, not my train. It must have been 1 or 2 trains ahead of mine.

When I got to the RTA station this morning, there were 3 ladder trucks, a rescue truck, and several other emergency vehicles. Apparently one of the previous trains had caught fire!

I didn't wait long at all for a train but it was running eastbound on the westbound track. The ride was slow and choppy as every few minutes we had to either switch tracks or wait while an oncoming (westbound) train switched tracks.

The Plain Dealer has a short article on this up on their site.

This has nothing to do with raising 7 kids but I had to put it somewhere.

Transportation

Transportation is definitely an issue with a family this size. We have 2 adults and 7 kids, and the oldest just turned 14, so they all need rides everywhere.

But the issue I'm writing about today is what happens when we all go the same place together at the same time. Very few cars in this day and age are made to hold a large family. When we got married, we each had a car, and for the first year or so, whenver we all went the same place (church, family gatherings, etc), we had to split up and drive 2 cars.

Not only was this inefficient on gas, but it created more separation and less bonding between the 2 previously separate families.

Then a friend from church offerred to give us their old van. It is a 1987 GMC Vandura with over 170,000 miles. It gets about 14 miles per gallon. It has a 2nd row of captains chairs, a bench seat, and another fold-up bench-seat in the way-back, facing backwards. It could easily hold 10 adults. And the kids can fit 4 or even 5 in the benches so it is plenty big enough for us. Some of the kids have nicknamed it Brown Sugar, but it has also been referred to as the Mystery Machine, a reference to the van driven by Fred and the gang in the Scooby Doo cartoon.

It was a great vehicle for us. We didn't drive it as our everyday car, but we used it when we travelled as a group, mostly to church, soccer games, and family events. We did take a short vacation in it to Niagara Falls.

Recently (since the end of December), the van has been parked due to leaks in the brake and fuel lines. Hopefully we will be able to get this repaired soon, but other car issues have taken priority lately.