Saturday morning, Kyle got a phone call from someone in our ward—while out running, he and his wife had passed a yard sale with some nice-looking baby furniture. Since he knows we’re expecting our first, he called us to let us know. So Kyle and I head on over, and it’s this changing table and crib, about a year old but in very good condition. Also a complete bedding set and mattress, all for $150 (we were told (and completely believe) that it all originally cost them $1,000). We hemmed and hawed for a bit, mostly because we don’t currently have room for baby furniture and because it’s white (we would have preferred a wood finish), but decided to buy it. I mean, it’s cute, it’s in good shape, and we saved a ton of money! So we drove to the ATM for some cash and paid for it, which just left getting it home. Of course, nobody we knew had a truck was around, so we rented one from Lowe’s (this went much more smoothly than on previous occasions). Of course, unloading at the apartment was tricky, with just Kyle and me to do it, and getting the crib into the office was even trickier: there’s a weird corner you have to turn, but we managed it by tipping the crib on end and taking the closet door off its hinges. So now our office is almost unusable due to the baby furniture taking up all the free space, but whatevs.
We spent most of the rest of Saturday recuperating (did I mention that it was 90-something degrees while we did all this?), and Sunday wasn’t too exciting, either. Well, except when Kyle told his mom about our find. Of course, being a year old, it’s a drop-side crib, so we knew it would have been recalled, but we just got on the manufacturer’s website and ordered the kit to convert it to a static-side crib (it’s already an extremely safe design, but they’re now sending us a couple of brackets that will completely immobilize the moving side)—no biggie, right? Well, Kyle’s mom informed us of something we had not even suspected: it is illegal to sell or resell recalled items! I knew retailers could no longer sell these cribs, but I didn’t think it applied to garage sales. So maybe we’re a little bit criminal. We’re still not concerned; this crib seems to have very good workmanship, and we can’t even figure out how this particular mechanism would fail anyway. We’ve decided we’re okay with it.
Monday was, of course, Independence Day. We went shopping at the mall for some shirts for Kyle that afternoon, but that still left us with a fireworks dilemma. Sadly, Livermore canceled their fireworks display this year, so we had to find somewhere else to go. We headed up to San Ramon around 7pm, expecting to spend a couple hours walking around their fair-type-thing and be all ready for fireworks at 9:30pm. Well, we got up there and parked and started walking around, only to discover that there was no fair-type-thing, only a row of concessions. So we walked around a bit more, then bought some very tasty kettle corn and found a spot to sit. For an hour and a half. All we’d brought with us was a deck of cards, and we realized we don’t know any games to play with a deck of cards except War (dismissed by Kyle as the most pointless game in the history of ever) and various iterations of solitaire. So I played solitaire while Kyle went back to the car for a second blanket (despite being blazing hot that afternoon, it was cooling down fast), and when he got back, Kyle showed me a magic trick. I pretty much guessed the solution right off. [Kyle’s Note: “…guessed the solution right off” might be overselling things; I’m not that bad at this simple magic trick.] Anyway, the fireworks finally started, and it was a really good display. We both had a hard time getting comfy, but we still enjoyed it a lot. All in all, it was a great holiday weekend!
Oh, and we’ve also been informed that I don’t look pregnant in the recent pics on this blog. Don’t worry, I am:
Well. just for the record before my other kids start posting comments about “Debbie Downer”, I mentioned the law about selling used cribs as an example of how stupid things are getting. I was not implying Kyle and Jess had broken the law or were jeopardizing their unborn child’s life. So Michael,Erin, Evan, Mollie and Megan, no need to write “Waah, waah”. I just try to stay on top of the news and do my part by passing it along when it is appropriate like letting them know that all Puerto Rican birth certificates had to be replaced.
And Jess, thanks for the side view. Now I can truly believe you’re pregnant.
I read about the reselling law too…which basically kind of sucks because now ANYONE who bought a crib ever pretty much can’t sell it on craigslist or at a yard sale without breaking a law. My friend had a drop side crib (like everyone else) that she got almost 10 years ago. She took it into Walmart where she originally bought it, they looked up the serial number, and refunded her THE ENTIRE PURCHASE PRICE no questions asked. She even said she didn’t think she had paid that much for it in the first place. Apparently the company that made it had since gone out of business so they had to give a refund. I was all excited to get my money back for my crib and just go buy a new one, but since the company is still in business all I get is a bracket kit. Super lame. But hey, maybe you could look up your crib and if the company is out of business take it in and get a bunch of money for it – now there you go!
(Oh wait, you said you got a bracket kid so sounds like they must still be in business.) Maybe I will start looking for cheap and illegally resold cribs at yard sales and taking them back to Walmart for full refunds.
kit not kid…that comes later. I’m done now.