Crib Recalls, Computer Viruses, and Other Fun

I know this is old news to most people. I thought it was old news for me. When the whole slew of crib recalls came out a couple years ago, I dutifully checked both (!) of our cribs, and we were good. I heard more were recalled, but I didn't think they were the brand we had, and they were both being used as toddler beds at the time, so I didn't pay attention I guess.  Fast forward to now, when we were trying to get rid of Reilly's crib, since the older two kids will finally be in "real" beds (bunkbeds!) when we move to Virginia.  So weird that they're getting that old.  Reilly talks a lot about how he will be 5 soon. I told him that 5-year-olds don't throw fits. I'll let you know how that goes. :)  So Jeremy took a load of furniture we were given down to Mesa to add to our storage unit (since that's where they're loading the truck - next Wednesday evening if anyone can help him!) and brought back a few things we DON'T want to cart all the way across the country (again). The crib was among them, and since none of my siblings need cribs, and since even my mom has one, we "listed" it on Facebook. A few people were interested right away, and someone was going to come look at it this evening. I tried to look up the manual online, so they would have help putting it together if they needed it, and found that it was now recalled! Like quite-a-few-deaths kind of recall. Fun times. I'm glad I found it out and not the people we sold it too; I would have felt really bad! So I was a little bummed until I started looking into the recall process.  Apparently, Simplicity (the company that made the cribs - mine was bought in late 2007) went completely out of business because of this, so you can't go through them.  What most people said was they took their cribs back where they bought them and got full refunds. REALLY? For my 3.5-year-old (albeit still in great shape) crib? Sign me up! Definitely exciting. I called our local Wal-mart (we bought the crib in Davenport at Wal-mart) and the lady was super helpful and spent a good 10 minutes looking up my specific model.  The paperwork was all ready when I brought it in. So now instead of a crib we didn't need, we have the full price we paid for it. SO helpful at this point in our expensive life.  And we also have an extra crib mattress.  Hmm.

That was a really nice thing to happen, since I had spent the preceding hours dealing with yet another virus. Which Avast (free virus protection) was blissfully unaware of. It even had the nerve to smugly inform me that "Avast virus definitions have been updated!" several times during the process. Piece of junk. Apparently, "Vista Spyware Protector 2012" or some other similar fake program had just found 32,000 viruses on my computer and wanted me to quickly activate my subscription so it could get rid of them. It was also, kindly, protecting my computer from further problems by blocking my internet access and keeping me from opening any programs that might have any effect on it. Thankfully(?) this is the third time this has happened to my computer in the last few years, and I've become a bit of an expert at getting rid of it. Also, thankfully, we have another computer in the room, which made it helpful for looking up the process again and downloading the latest sweet little virus destroyers. It took almost 2 hours (because it kept recognizing the files I'd try to run and I had to go look up different versions of them) but we are virus free again.  Thank you bleepingcomputer.com. That place is a lifesaver! Love it.

There is SOME fun to report on. :) The day after we had Katy's birthday, we got to go down to Mesa (which is currently hotter than even the Gila Valley, which seems hotter than you-know-where) to celebrate Kinzi's first birthday! There are cute pictures on Phil & Sophie's blog, and here are a few more:

She thought she was hot stuff with Kinzi's walking toy!

Birthday girls!

This girl loves water. Hot, cold, lots, a little, on her head, WHATEVER. She loves it!

She finally got through all of that frosting and found her cake!

True love, right there...

The kids had a good time, and the trip was worth it, even though it was a lot of driving in one day. (Now that we're not used to the 10-12 hour driving days anymore...) We were so happy to get to be there!

We were planning on driving up to Las Vegas to deliver something and see two sets of our best friends this weekend, but those plans fell through. :( I'm sad, but at the same time, it's hard to be too upset about missing out on 18 hours of driving through the desert in June. And if there's anywhere hotter than Phoenix, it's got to be Vegas.  So we're going to do a little bit of Stay-cationing and let Reilly and Jaina spend a few days with their Grandpa and Grandma Kerrigan. :) Katy too, but I'll probably bring her home at night, since she'll most likely sleep better here.  We'll mostly pack some more, probably, but I'm hoping to finish up some computer projects while Jeremy is working, because he's getting anxious to pack my computer. :-s   I hate packing my computer! I guess I just need a laptop next time or something... :)