Duct (Duck) Tape is Great!!

Got  home last night from Emily's band concert, which she rocked, and had to get the window up in the van so that (1) Steph does not continue to get cold in the morning when she is driving (2) the seat does not get wet with the possibility of rain.

So the boys, Clay and myself, go to work.  We take the door panel off and push the window up and it won't go up all the way.  The cable that is attached to the window is wadded up so I had to cut it so we could push the window all the way up.  Well you guessed it, we used duct tape to tape (or as Clay calls it Aflac tape, get it dad Aflac, Duck?  Love that boy)  the window up from the inside.  Really doesn't look that bad but yes, it is now completely a redneck van.  The horn doesn't work because I switched out the horn relay and put it in the park lamp relay.  The window is being held up with tape.  No drive through anything for us for awhile....LOL

Have a great rainy Tuesday.  Lord thank you for all of your many blessings, we love you Amen.

Dusty.

Well we have tail lights!

YAY!!!  So after I posted the first blog and sent everyone the link on facebook, a friend of mine saw the post and her husband works at NAPA in Jacksonville.  He read my post and I am pretty thankful he did.  I called and chatted with him for a few minutes and he actually confirmed for me what I had wanted to do to begin with but was a little apprehensive because I did not want to fry anything else.

OK so underneath the hood if have a little box for Fuses and Relays.  I did notice that there was not a relay in the slot for the Park Lamp Relay.  I had gone to the parts store and asked them, do I need that one?  They said I didn't because they could not find it in the computer (this was in Cabot not at the NAPA store.) So this was always in the back of my mind about this relay.  I had already put a new switch in so I knew that was not the issue.  (By the way I have an extra one if any of you need a headlight switch for a 2003 Dodge Caravan.) Changed out the light bulbs, no go.

So I am talking to this guy at the NAPA store, I am not naming him because I didn't ask him if I could, and he said to take one of the other relays out like for the horn and plug it in for the Park Lamps.  This is the confirmation I needed to know that I was not going to fry something.  I did that and now the lights work.

SOOOOO I go to the parts store, take out the relay, take it in, and say "I need one of these".  They looked, and they don't have it.  Not that my van doesn't need it, but that they don't have it.  I am going to have to get it from Dodge.

So now we don't have a horn.  I told Stephanie, and she said, "That's OK, we don't need it.  Since the window won't go up, I can just yell out the window at people if I need them to move!"  I love that girl so much.

We got an unexpected blessing as well yesterday.  If you read this you know who you are and we are so very thankful.  We love you and thank you for listening to God, that is way more important anyway.

God is so very good to us, I really do not know where we would be today had it not been for Him.  With all the stuff that goes on with us, He has totally taught me to be patient and wait on Him.  Don't think I don't get frustrated, because I do, I am human and has one of our pastors sons said one time, Dad I was born into sin. (he said that after he punched his brother...LOL)  But God always wants us to turn our eyes on Him so that H knows that we know who is in charge!

Now to get the window fixed!  Stay tuned...

Hope it doesn't Rain

Today I had to come to work, Steph has the van.  Hope it doesn't rain while she is out driving around.

Dear Lord, thank you for the stories, I am not sure our family would be very interesting if you did not give us these stories to tell. Amen

Hope Steph doesn't get wet while she is out driving around today.

Oh, because of my very first blog post, a friend of mine on facebook has a husband that works at a parts store, I have to call him later.  He may know what is wrong with the lights.

prayin.

Dusty

The Van-Will it still go?

Ok so I posted on FaceBook that I was going to start a blog about my van, not complaining but frankly this has turned into humor.  Let me start off by saying that we are super blessed to have a  vehicle that we can carry our family to church and actually haul a couple of other kids around when they need it.  We love taking our kiddos and others to church. 

So we bought the van from a person at our previous church after someone rear ended our other one about 3 and half years ago.  The van was perfect and we loved it! We still have about a year left on it.  Well a few months ago started with brake pads, not a big deal, easy to install.  We went a couple of months and Steph was driving down the road and the van just died.  No warning, just died.  She tried to restart it and nothing.  With the key on, all of the lights on the dash worked, the radio worked; everything else worked. So I know it is not the battery, (which would have been an easy fix). 

So Steph is "stranded" at the gas station and a nice old man comes out and helps her a little push the van out of the way.  (I was at work in Conway, don't judge).  He gives her the name of a 'real good mechanic'.  She calls the towing company here in Cabot and has the van towed out to his house.  -Sidebar State Farm insurance in Cabot, you can call the towing company and have it billed directly to the insurance company if you have emergency roadside service. end sidebar-  What I didn't know is this guy is what my mom called a Tent Mechanic.  Anyway, the van was there for about a month and he could not ever figure out what was wrong with the van.  He changed this and that, ordered the book and all he could think of.  So we went a month and didn't have our van.  Again an opportunity for us to be blessed because we have friends that live in Bald Knob that are pretty awesome.  They let us borrow a car of theirs that they do not usually drive.

Oh did I mention in the meantime, a week after my van broke, my truck broke down, in the middle of moving.  I was a little upset on the inside, but my son was with me and I do call myself a Christian and I literally thought, this is a great time to be an example.  Thank you Lord!!  Clay asked if I was OK, and I said yes I am fine, just another opportunity for us to Praise God.  It was hot because this was the first part of August, so we went around to the back of the truck put the tailgate down, and man it was hot.  We sat down and a good breeze started blowing, I looked and Clay and said, "do you feel that?" He asked "What?" "I said God, He just cooled us off." God gives us so many opportunities to praise him, but I think most of the time we get caught up in the stuff.  My brother, Tommy, is great I had my truck towed to his house, he had my truck fixed within the week.  It was the fuel pump.  I love my bubba!

Oh yeah, and did I tell you you that the car we borrowed from our friends that the belt shredded a week after we got it?  Oh and that same day it shredded I went to get a new one.  Gave the parts store the information about the car and they sold me a belt.  I was trying to put it on for an hour or so, called the parts store back just to make sure I got the correct belt.  They said yes and so I went back to try to put it on.  Did I tell you that I had to go to work that afternoon?  Well I called my buddy back because he was in Cabot and because he is pretty awesome he came by to help me.  He helped me work on it some and then I got the parts store to send the schematic for the pulleys but he had gone by another store and got a schematic.  The two did not match.  I went back to the first store, found out they did sell me the incorrect belt so I went to another store and got the correct belt.  Seriously after I had spent about 3 hours working on this car, it took all of 5 minutes to fix the care with the right belt.  Praise the Lord for my friend David, we got to spend some dude time together, and learned a few things in the process.

OK so I am driving the car and Stephanie had to go a couple of weeks later to get her port put in for her new medicine for her MS.  So in August one morning we get up go to the hospital to get her port put in, everything is on schedule, surgery goes well she gets out of recovery and we have to go across the street to the infusion center for her first dose of Tysabri.  So I take her to the infusion center and they get her hooked up.  She gets hungry so I go to McCalisters and get her a potato then to Olive Garden for some raspberry cheesecake.  If you wonder why I am telling you all of this stuff, my point is how many times I get in and out of the car all day.  I still have to get back to get Clay to baseball practice after I get him from the in-laws house.  So Steph finishes her infusion, we are done!!!  We get in the car get ready to go and the key will not turn in the ignition....REALLY!!!???  This is what does me in?  A moment of woe as me.   I call David to see if there is something special that I need to do to get it to turn, if it had ever happened to him.  I try for 30 minutes, I even have a blister on my finger.  So what do I find?  A crescent wrench.  I hit the key a couple of times and low and behold, the key turns in the ignition.  Praise God!!!  Since I am now 30 minutes behind I call Pops and Gig and they are going to bring Clay to practice.  I brought Stephanie home, got her settled.  Go to the ball field to retrieve my girls and meet up with Clay.  So I get there get Clay going on practice then ask Aunt Monica to keep an eye on him so that I can run Stephanie scripts to the pharmacy so that I can pick them up after ball practice.

I go back to get Clay and an hour or so later I we leave practice and go and get the meds.  I pick everything up, and go home and start getting the kids their showers.  I give Steph her meds and we go looking through them and she did not get one.  I call the pharmacy and tell them we did not get one of them and they said they did not have it.  I told them that I know that they have it because it was the only one written in blue ink, they said oh yeah here it is.  The doctor had made the prescription out for September 18th instead of August 17th.  I had to call the doctor on call to get them to call the pharmacy to change the prescription.  They took care of it and I had to go back to the pharmacy to pick it up.  I finally got home around 9:30pm to eat supper.  WOW what a long day.  Sorry I got off on the tirade, but this all stems from the van.

So I have my van towed to another mechanic, they changed the ignition switch.  The first guy had put a new starter in it, both of which I purchased so I have already spent almost $200 on the van.  Nothing has fixed it. 

Well I called the Dodge Corporation to see if there was anything they could do as far as assistance to help me get my van fixed. So I ended up having it towed to the Dodge place in Conway.  They have to hook it up on the main computer to see if they can figure it out.  Well they did figure it out, it was the Powertrain Control Module, or the main computer.  Guess how much that cost $980, yep that's right!  Huge amount, but you know what?  God took care of us then too.  He still answers prayers guys!!  This was taken care of for us, not by the Dodge Corporation because it was out of warranty, but through God's people!

When we left the Dodge place after our van was fixed, we noticed that the reservoir for the coolant had been removed by the 1st mechanic and he didn't bother to put it back on, and God is so good that he made it a semi-rainy day and Steph turned on the wipers and they did not work.  We were right there by the Dodge place so we took it back and told them what was wrong. I got a call later and they told me that it did not have the wiper relay, and they had one laying around and so they put it in at no charge, thank you thank you thank you Lord!  I was in Conway and I was afraid to drive the van all the way back to Cabot without the reservoir so I sent a text to a friend that lives in Conway and asked him to help me put it back in.  He has tools and he was on the way home.  Are you seeing a trend on how God provides?

So here we are in October.  Stephanie was driving to church one night and noticed this guy following her for a pretty long time.  She got to the church, a little scared, and got out of the van to the guy calling out to her, "ma'am, ma'am, umm your tail lights are out, please be careful."  Steph told me and I thought, well that will be an easy fix, probably a fuse.  Well its not a fuse, all of the lights work except the tail lights and the front parking lights.  I changed out the switch, changed the bulbs and no fix.  I am not real sure what to do there.  So yesterday she calls me when I am on my way to Ropers to work, job 2, (still providing, God is so good).  The window will not roll up, I was like hmmmmmm.  So I was totally thinking electrical, or that it had just come off of the tracks or something.  Well I get home take the panel off, and well, the cable was all wadded up and broken.  At this point I am a little stressed but also at the same time thinking this is getting funny and a little ridiculous.  I have about a year left on the van, and now you are going to fall apart.  Get in this morning to go to church with the window down because I cant get it back up and on the passenger side sliding door some of the seal is coming off. 

So with all that said, I posted on facebook this morning I am going to have to blog about the van.  I need a name fore it now, the van.  I am going to try to keep this updated with what happens to it.  What fixes it or if it finally bites the dust or if it some time we are blessed with something else that either replaces it or is in addition too. 

Stay Tuned!

Dusty Hankins