Since the last post, I have been trying to track down our engine problem. We got a battery and after replacing the ground strap and connections we  hooked it up. We were hoping the only engine problem was the fuel pump wires that were not connected. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. After getting the pump running I noticed a leaking fuel line to the #3 injector. We bought some new line and installed that, but still the engine wont run. I know the fuel pump works, I know we have spark, but I can’t get the bus to stay running. I noticed some bad vacuum line to the fuel pressure regulator so I replaced that too. The engine still wont run; it always floods almost right away. We may have a problem with the fuel pressure regulator and that is what I am going to test next.

For good news, we have been successfully updating the interior. We have painted the interior panelling a warm tan color. It looks good and will compliment the blue upholstery. We removed all the curtains and Tonya is working on those. We are going with white curtains with blue trim. I got the stereo running and found a Best of Bob Marley CD still in it. For some reason, the main 12 volt line was cut. It was an easy fix.

I figure it is time to start talking about the projects we are doing to the bus. In my last post, you saw a couple “before” pics.You can see the progress we have made on the front passenger seat. We carefully removed the seat covers to expose the original foam and horsehair padding. Most of the hair just fell of the seat. After picking off the old foam we got it down to bare medal. We aren’t sure what we will use as new padding so I am leaving the driver seat intact for when we start working on the engine and need to go on test drives.

We are making progress on the back seat/bed as well. We have removed the entire seat and bracket. We removed all the old fabric and old foam, and purchased the new materials. The fabric was beyond repair and not really our taste. The foam could have been salvaged but we wanted to start with something fresh since we are redoing the rest of the interior. Our new fabric is a Nautica blue striped pattern. We are going with white curtains to brighten up the inside of the bus.

We are now done with the floor project too. Before, it was a dirty red carpet. You can see the contrast between what was underneath the back seat and the part that was walked on everyday. It turned out to be pretty easy to rip up the carpet. There was a thin foam pad between the carpet and the plywood that is the floor of the bus. After a little scrapping, the foam is gone too and there is a very thin layer of black foam on top of the plywood. This should actually help with what we are installing as the new floor. We found a great deal on a couple boxes of special order return Pergo hardwood at Lowes. I think the color is Atlantic Maple and it looks awesome. Because the floor of the bus is plywood, the Pergo will install over it without further prep or materials. It took us about five hours to install the whole floor. We have some tan caulk for the edging after we redo the walls.

We are thinking about painting over all the old wood veneer interior. This would really brighten up the interior and modernize it at the same time.

The bus still does not have  a battery so we haven’t even tested the engine or any electrical. For fun we decided to plug in the RV cord. This cord is used when at a campsite with hookups. It is basically a big cord to plug in the bus to avoid draining the battery. We didn’t learn too much other that the fridge does work! The fridge should also run on propane but it was nice to know it works electrically as well.

I haven’t figured out how to insert pics throughout this post so I am just lumping them in a photo gallery at the end. The pictures follow the steps above so should be pretty easy to follow.

passenger seat “before”

original horse hair padding

more padding

down to the frame

the seats “before”

back seat brackets

All the new foam

the new upholstery

the old dirty carpet

carpet removed

ready for hardwood

the finished product

I am starting a new catergory: Bus for all the posts about our new car: A 1975 Volkswagen Riviera Bus. Tonya and I have been looking for one for about a month. We found ours on craigslist and picked it up (we needed a trailer) on Friday September 25th. We will be posting details about the restoration and then the camping trips we have in Matilda. I will start with some “before” pictures to give an idea of what we are starting with.

Matilda’s first picture

We will have to do a little body work

Did we mention that Claire loves it?

Bringing home the bus

My first time in the driver seat

Safe in our garage

Before of the back seats

Before of the carpet (back seat removed)

The next post will outline our vision for Matilda and our progress so far.

My 30 day trial has come to an end. It is harder than I thought. I have found that there are certainly things worth writing about. At least from a journal perspective. The hard part is finding the time. I can write from my BlackBerry but that is slow and the posts are really short, and without ellaboration. Also, I just don’t get on the computer everynight. Or, if I do, I don’t have time to write a decent post. As a compromise, I have just decided to post more often. Toward the end I was really bunching daily posts together anyway. I am still deciding the best approach for pictures. For now, you can check out my Minnesota album on Facebook.

Friday, Day 26
After work we went down to Tonya’s parents for dinner and to hang out. We had pork steaks and potatoes; they were yummy. After dinner we played poker for a few hours. Rick and I went out first so Tonya and Terri battled it out for about 2 hours. We got home late but it was a great start to the weekend.

This is Tonya’s last weekend before she starts work. We wanted to make the most of it.

 
Saturday, Day 27
We didn’t really do anything Saturday morning but with a big day ahead we cleaned the house and got things ready. We dropped the girls off at Aunt Kelly’s house around 2. It was the first night away from Mom and Dad for Madeline. We had a pool party to get to but it was hard to leave the girls. We had a big taco dinner and there was lots of playing volleyball and playing in the pool. My best friend is in a play so we went to that Saturday night. His play is called Lend Me a Tenor and my friend has the lead role. All our friends went to and it was a blast. The play was hilarious and it was cool to see our friends acting (my friend’s wife was also in the play). On the way back to the pool we rocked out to songs on my iPod. We swam and had a good time until about midnight. The neighbor called and said we were too loud. We moved the party to our house and stayed up until about 3. It was a great night. Sometimes it is nice to have the girls stay somewhere and really party with your friends.

 
Sunday, Day 28
After the fun of last night we kind of forgot that we had to get up at 7. Kelly and Ben are redoing their wallpaper and we were signed up to help. The work started at 9. It was a long and tiring day. We left around 2 PM and were exhausted. Once at home, we got things prepared for the girls to go to daycare. Diapers, wipes, clothes, bottles, blankets. We had everything laid out so it would be easy at 5:30 tomorrow morning. We were asleep by 8:30 to try to catch up on some sleep.

 
Monday, Day 29
Today is the girls’ first day back/in daycare. Claire is going back to KinderCare. Some of the same teachers are still there and some of the kids are still there as well. Claire says she is excited to go to school. Tonya and Claire have visited the center a couple times in the last few weeks to help Claire adjust.

Madeline will be watched by one of our friends. She has a young son and Madeline will be her only addition. Madeline will get lots of one on one time. After several checks throughout the day, Tonya is feeling better and better about going back to work.

The girls all had a great first day. Claire did not cry when I dropped her off, Madeline was awake and smiling, and Tonya also lasted the whole day.

Well, no pictures yet, but I do have the next digest. Again, I am playing catch up.

Thursday, Day 18
We went on a short, pleasant walk around our neighborhood.

Friday, Day 19
My brother and his wife came up for part of the weekend. We played board games and watched some TV. It was good to catch up and relax.

Saturday, Day 20
We took the girls to the neighborhood park in the afternoon (after all the rain in the morning). My brother and I played frisbee while Tonya watched Claire run around the boat play structure.

Sunday, Day 21
We took a weather gamble and headed to the beach. Some family friends always camp at Fort Stevens for Labor Day. We opted out of camping due to the weather but still wanted to visit. On our way over the coast range it rained the whole time. It was still raining when we pulled into the campground. We saw picnic tables, coolers, and even tents sitting in huge mud puddles. We were very happy we didn’t camp. As it turns out, we missed most of the rain. We played horseshoes and volleyball and Claire had a great time running around. Madeline stayed bundled in the stroller or in the arms of friends. We had a hot dog roast and putluck for dinner then went home to our nice dry beds.

Monday, Day 22
Tonight we had dinner at a friends house. I helped him work on his car while Tonya chatted and watched the girls. Unfortunately, we were not able to diagnose the problem.

Tuesday, Day 23
Ah, the joys of being a father. Madeline was fussy tonight and the only thing that worked was holding her while walking around the living room. She did not want to be still. Claire quickly realized she was missing the fun and insisted (by crying) that she needed to be held too. So here is me, walking around the living with with a girl in each arm. I am trying to balance Madeline with one arm while Claire is resting her head on my shoulder.

Wednesday, Day 24
I had an interview at work today. It was for a position in the Delinquency department. I don’t know if I want the job but I applied anyway. The new skills and challenges would be great but I am apprehensive about doing collections. I did my best in the interview so we will see.
Also, tonight, Madeline held her bottle for the first time. We have been doing some bottle feeding to prepare her for day care next week. That’s right, Tonya is going back to work starting Monday. Madeline was able to hold the bottle still as it rested on her chest. She did a great job, we are so proud.

Thursday, Day 25
We had some friends over for dinner tonight. They brought a couple bottles of wine and we had chicken salads. Oddly enough, on the bottle of Yellow Tail Chardonnay it says, “Enjoy with good friend and a chicked salad.” We did enjoy. We also played a couple board games and had a great night together.

Ok. Only 5 days to go. I think I like the weekly/bi-weekly blogging better. I enjoy remembering little things each day but actually sitting down to blog everyday is too time consuming.

I have been writing down things daily but just haven’t had time to post. I will use this as a catch up post for the past 4 days.

Sunday. Home. After another full day of driving and 800+ miles we are home. It is so nice to look forward to your own comfortable bed, a shower that stays hot, and your own morning routines.

Monday. During our vacation Claire has greatly increased her talking. She will pretty copy any word we say and after any sentence will pick out a word to practice. We even have her speaking some Minnesotan. She says yaaah and suuuure with the best of them. Madeline is also getting more and more active. She smiles and coos regularly now. After work we drove to my parents for a quick dinner and to pick up our dogs. I am tired of driving for a while.

Tuesday. After work we toured a house that we hope will be Madeline’s daycare. Tonya goes back to work on the 14th and we need to be prepared. The house is very close to ours and we really like the lady that will be watching her. Madeline will gets lots of attention and love.

Wednesday. My first full day (other than work) at home since we got back. It was nice to not have any plans. We had a relaxing dinner, rearranged the living room, and got to bed early. I think I am still catching up from the trip. I fell asleep on the couch last night around 9, halfway through Coraline, which was really good.

I feel much better now that I am caught up on my daily blogging. Later this week I may even post some pictures!

We got up early and were on the road by 5 am. 850 miles and 13 hours later we were in Bozeman. We stopped at the Theodore Roosevelt National Park again and saw a couple bison. For dinner we had delicious chinese buffet. We went to bed early in hopes of a good night sleep before another long day.

We got up, had a big breakfast and decided to play a poker tournament. $5 buy-in no limit hold em. Tonya got second and won $15. This is our last day in Minnesota so we were packing up. For dinner we went to the casino for their buffet. It sucked. The adults stayed for the Styx concert and we went home to watch a movie and get to bed early.

Thursday
We did some driving today and went to Detroit Lakes. It is similar to Seaside or Lincoln City. It has shopping, restaurants, resorts, and retirees. We picked up some souvenirs and drove around the lake to look at big houses. In the evening we went to a benefit dinner for a relative with cancer. The turnout was huge and it was nice to see most of the people I met throughout the trip. I can’t believe our vacation is nearly over. We have just tomorrow before two days of driving to get home.