July 30th – August 1st • Finalizing Business Details
Since I’m so far behind on this blog I just don’t know where to start when I sit down. My thoughts are all over the place, I will do my best to gather my thoughts and give you a hopefully descriptive timeline and details into our life. I have never claimed to be the best writer, but I’m good at talking. With that being said I will be writing this blog as if we are talking to you so that it will make it easier for me to give you a glimpse into our lives.
I am going to pick up this blog from where we left off on the last blog I was telling you about being in Texas, and Malachi’s amazing cooking abilities. Our time in Texas had come to an end, as we had reserved one month at the RV resort and it was time for us to start wrapping things up. We had also learned that we needed to have a permanent residence for Kevin’s immigration, instead of using a campground as an address. You can read about our journey to finding our home here.
On July 30th we decided to stay in Moline, and for the night we stayed at the hotel right across from the John Deere Pavilion in Moline. The reason for staying here was because we had picked up a new toter home and we were still a long way from our camper to sleep for the night. A lot of people have asked me what a toter home is. It is a truck that has been converted to have a sleeping area in the back, and it also functions as a couch for the kids to sit on while we drive. It works great for our family for travel, as there are 2 couches in the back and lots of room for our family. We needed a way to tow a trailer for our new and upcoming business The Tractor King, Inc. The journey that we took to pick up this toterhome was to go to Illinois to pick it up and view some properties along the way to reside in for Kevin’s immigration.
Once we picked up the toter home we made our way down to the house here in Creston that as you know, we live in at this moment. It was the first time that we would see this house before we would fall in love with Iowa. The property as you’ve seen in my previous post has a house and a large shop with working space for us. It seemed like a perfect fit, so we had decided that day that this was a place that we wanted, we just had to have a talk with the landlord and wait for his response. Of course, we’re friendly and amazing people, so of course, the landlord ended up loving us and they actually were so kind that they let us leave our new toter home in the shop so we didn’t have to drive both trucks back down to Texas. We then had to go down to Texas to pick up our camper and bring it back to Iowa before our vacation in California with our family.
Sometimes when I’m writing this blog I don’t remember what things I told you and what things I haven’t. So if I am repeating myself I apologize, as I am doing my best to keep up with life and be able to explain my life to you. We were really excited that we had a toterhome and we were ready to go. We took the toterhome on its maiden journey to California for 2 weeks. There were a few quirks and things we needed to work out before we were smooth-sailing, but overall it was awesome for travel. I will go into detail about our trip to California at a later date.
I’m going to fast forward a little bit to our drive on the way back to Iowa the alternator caught on fire. Which put a huge wrinkle in our plans and on top of that while we were in California our entire family decided to catch Covid. Yes, Covid the dreaded Covid. We are now going to be in our new home in Iowa and the first two weeks of that we are all sick. On top of that our toter home has burnt down and we had to find a vehicle to get us home from Grand Junction, CO. We bought a van for $1500 because it was cheaper than renting a car. We drove his vehicle from Colorado to Iowa as fast as we possibly could so we didn’t infect anyone with our sickness. Which makes it really hard when everybody is sick to not take any downtime. We drove straight through as we were trying to be as respectful to others as we could. We arrived at our new home in Iowa with no furniture. We slept in the camper for the first night. We were very blessed that one of my really dear friends, that I used to know in Vegas who now lives in Iowa, came the day after we moved here and brought us beds and all the things that we needed from Walmart and Target. We had all of our basic needs filled after we moved into the house without having to go anywhere. We did end up having to order groceries for the first two weeks. All of this while moving to a new home, a new state, and totally new environment was difficult.
Originally when we came down to the US we had planned to be able to live off our savings until Kevin was able to get a job here, but God had greater plans for us and our family. Kevin had an amazing idea to start a tractor sales business. As many of you know about how our little endeavor turned into a large endeavor. We now own a business called The Tractor King, Inc. We sell tractors all over the US, and we have incorporated our business and set it up to be a legitimate business out of Iowa. This toterhome that we purchased was supposed to be our meal ticket to being able to drop off and pick up tractors. Of course, the toter home is now stuck in Colorado, since it had caught on fire. The insurance company took the toterhome to a Ford dealership in Colorado to get things looked over and fixed.
It was supposed to take 7-10 business days. Well, we just picked up the toterhome this weekend November 27th and it was with the insurance since September 1st. I know this is a lot of fast-forwarding and going back-and-forth but I kind of wanted to cover some of the bases and tell you where we’re at now. I’m trying to get this blog to the point where it is updated and I can tell you our stories as they happen. We did go to Colorado which was a 10-hour drive there and a 10-hour drive back. Unfortunately when we picked up our toter home although the engine issues were fixed apparently the tow truck company had damaged many things on the vehicle. Also since the alternator caught on fire, there is a very bad smoke smell coming out of the vents, and of course, we are now back to fighting with the insurance company until all of these issues are fixed. We also have a brand new 2020 Chevrolet Silverado that we bought right before we left Canada, but of course, we are also fighting with Chevrolet because we’ve had nothing but problems and this truck has been in service ever since we purchased it. Which makes it very difficult to run a business when you need vehicles that can tow and none of them are working properly.
I think I’ve kind of covered the bases of where we’re at as far as our home and our toter home but right now we are sitting here in Iowa working on building a business called The Tractor King, Inc and working out ways to be able to see our family, we really ideally just want to be on the road but sometimes life takes a turn. Some of those turns, it takes for the better. I’m hoping that this blog gives you a little bit of an update on where we’re at and you keep reading along and seeing all the adventures that we have had and will have in the future.
If you are reading our blog and have questions or things you would like me to go into more detail I would love to hear from you. We do plan to travel a lot this next year, the end of December will be spent with my family in California. Then we will head to Las Vegas for 2 weeks in January to celebrate my 40th! I’m really excited about these coming trips and can’t wait to see where the future takes us.
