After Fifteen Years, Vanna White Retires!

I've Got a Great New POPrs Giveaway going on...and it involves a puppy!

Not THAT Vanna White...This one!

Hey, doesn't EVERYBODY name their cars?


I am participating in Six-Word Saturday, hosted by Cate at Show My Face.

Vanna White to the Rescue!

Once again, Vanna White was called into action, and once again, she came through! College Boy just moved back to start his Junior Year, so Aunt Julie and Uncle Lynn helped him move into an apartment. That's Uncle Lynn, at the helm of Vanna, pulling a trailer across the State of Wisconsin full of College Boy's Stuff.

"We needed to rent a trailer for this event, so I called a dozen places and no one had one for us," Julie, ever the Resourceful Mom, said. "If I heard one more time that this was the weekend all the college kids were moving, I was going to scream! The little muffler shop in town also rents U-Hauls, so I tried them as a last resort. Well, they too were over-booked, BUT…they had one that U-Haul didn’t know about. I could have it Friday night and have it back Sunday, and pay for one day."

Auntie J. snapped up that bargain, right away! "Long story short, we picked it up Thursday noon, they lent us the adaptor, and it had to be back no later than Monday night, or they would have to charge us for more than one day! If anyone wants me to negotiate for them, I’m available, for a small fee!"

Julie says College Boy's apartment, which he shares with another guy, is "tiny, but compared to a dorm room, it’s a palace. And it didn’t appear to have rodents. Oh well, a mother can dream!"

On That Note, hope you're Having Sweet Dreams about The Great New Pop'rs Giveaway! One more day--Enter now, I say!

Ode to Vanna White

The Pop'rs Cousins, along with Aunt Julie and Uncle Lynn, left the beach this weekend, headed for home. After an overnight stop at our house, they were on their way back to Northeastern Wisconsin. Their 14+ hour trip was made more comfortable, of course, thanks to Vanna White.

We're not talking about the "Wheel of Fortune" star here. We're talking about a big ol' white Econoline Conversion Van, with close to 260,000 miles on it. The Pop'rs Family bought Vanna in 1994, when the boys were little and Soccer Boy wasn't yet digging the sod out of his cleats. Vanna has traveled to DC, OBX, and Florida too many times to count. She's also always up for ski trips at the blink of an eye! The shot above shows Vanna in her younger years, with Shark Boy, Aunt Julie, Moses, Uncle Lynn and College Boy ready to embark on another Vanna Voyage.

Vanna is outfitted for the Traveling Life, you betcha. She has four sets of headphone jacks in the back for iPods and personal DVD players. "We laughed at first when we’d ask the boys a question and they would yell because they were wearing headphones," Aunt Julie says. "College Girl has a habit of getting carsick in Vanna, with the movies playing and all the junk we eat on trips, so she is banned. The dogs see us loading Vanna up for a trip and will jump in if we leave the door open. They know we are going away!" Both Trouble Elizabeth and Moses have made multiple trips to the beach in Florida in Vanna. "Trouble Elizabeth had to go on his first beach vacation when he had a broken leg, and needed physical therapy," Julie recalls.

Then there was the time when Auntie J. was seven months pregnant with Soccer Boy. "We got to Milwaukee and I made Lynn stop," Julie explains, wincing at the memory. "I felt closed in, uncomfortable and trapped (much like College Girl feels when she gets Vanna Sick), so he pulled over at a rest stop. He called my OB, who laughed when told I had only been on the road an hour-and-a-half! So I took some Dramamine and slept the rest of the trip. When we got to the hotel for the night, I was amazed at how good the boys had been. Lynn retorted that I could have slept through an atomic bomb!"

Vanna showed her advancing age during this last beach trip. Just outside Milwaukee, she blew a tire. Near Louisville, she overheated. And when Vanna and the Gang reached my neck of the woods, she had to go to the mechanic for a radiator problem.

Everyone made it back to Wisconsin safe and sound, though. But Uncle Lynn is thinking about retiring Vanna. He's got his eye on a successor--another white Econoline Conversion Van. Vanna White the Second, I suppose?