Labor Day Weekend: Lead-up to Preschool

The last week has been our last one before the start of activities. Actually, Adelaide’s dance class started and we went to preschool open house, but that’s about it. Preschool starts next week. Speech therapy. And dance class. We’ll also be attending the children’s group reading at the local library once a week.

The weekend started with a visit to Iowa City, Iowa, to see my childhood teams face off. I was raised to be an Iowa fan, and still am, for the most part. It’s very rare that they play my other, true favorite team, Northern Illinois University. So being a fan of both teams isn’t a problem. In the rare instances when they play, I used to be torn on who to support. But came to the conclusion that I’m more of an NIU fan, so now am 100% rooting for NIU. Anyhow, we met up with my cousin and his girlfriend to tailgate before the pitiful showing by NIU in a lackluster game.

While I was at the game, Karissa and the kids were at the lake house. I may have managed to sneak in a bike ride before they got home too 😉

Adelaide has a shoe problem. She only has 5-6 pairs of shoes, but takes forever to pick which ones to wear. And brings another 2+ pairs in a bag wherever we go. Her bag-packing problem is a story for another day. Anyhow, to avoid being delayed for preschool by her shoe selection, we decided to buy her new shoes that she only wears to school. It will hopefully avoid delays before school and ensure she wears appropriate footwear, especially since she’s into high heels. We started looking for shoes at Kohl’s, but spending $40+ on kid shoes seems crazy – so we went to Wal-Mart.

Finally, we’ve been debating the future of our traveling rig all summer. As the end of our trip approached and throughout most of the summer, we were convinced we’d sell the 5th wheel and trade the huge truck for an F-150. Then, we explored trading the 5th wheel for a travel trailer that said F-150 could handle. I even found a particular truck that would allow us to get a 2012 Ford Explorer to replace our 2003 minivan. We’ve been all over the board and need to make a decision because the lack of decision is driving me crazy!

I posted a series of choices on Instagram (@rose_relish) last week, but here are the choices as we see it:

1. Keep it all. Enjoy the set-up while we have it and avoid transactional friction/risk/loss.
2. Switch to a big gas truck and keep the 5th wheel. Diesel isn’t made to be an errand-runner. The engines want/need to work to stay healthy, so getting a gasser could give us a low MPG fit for regular life while keeping the 5th wheel.
3. Switch to an F-150 and smaller trailer. This way, we’d have a vehicle we want for the long-term and still be able to live the RV life.
4. Sell both the 5th wheel and big truck to get a “normal” vehicle. Just give up on the RV life.

If you have any input, we’d love to hear it. We’re hoping to get to a decision within the next few weeks so we can get on with life…and get the 5th wheel out of our driveway!