We're Moved In!

Well, here we are, at home in the Adventure Bus. All in all the move-in went well.

The only real glitch was with the great deal we got on the memory foam mattress. It turned out to be a not so great deal after all. Mainly because the manufacturer - NasaFoam - failed to deliver as promised. The deal on Groupon looked great. A $2100 mattress for $699 - what a saving. Who could resist. So I ordered it. The order procedure seemed strange. No "thank you for your order" note. No receipt. No anything. That made me nervous.

So after three weeks I called the company. Someone answered the phone with "hello". No company name at all. That made me more nervous. I said I was calling to enquire about an order I placed. "They don't deal directly with the public" the voice said. "but you have a link on your website to redeem my Groupon" I said "Oh" said the voice "Well, where do you live?" "Halifax. Nova Scotia" "Halifax, where's that?" Now, that made me really nervous.

The conversation ended with a promise that the shipper would call me with a delivery date by "the end of the week". The end of the week came and no call. So I called again. The voice said "I will look into it and get right back to you" Then no call.

After another week I called again. The voice was starting to get abrupt and rude. So I hung up and emailed Groupon. After two responses saying there was nothing they could do because it was an internet order I wrote asking for a refund. One day later we got a note from NasaFoam asking for payment for shipping. Hurrah! Finally some action! I paid it immediately with Paypal. As you likely know Paypal guarantees they will refund your money if there is a problem. We use Paypal for Bay Hammocks on-line payments and know their system - they hold back 15% of each order for 90 days in case they need to refund someone's money.

We waited another week and still no mattress. Arch then called NasaFoam and talked to the voice. By now we know his name is John.  After some discussion he learned that the mattress was supposed to be shipped by a freight forwarding company and they (Nasafoam) had no control over the shipping date. So Arch asked for a bill of lading #. John said there was no such thing. Now, Arch used to work for Ford Motor Company in material handling so he knows - there is always a bill of lading.  After some discussion Arch got the name and a phone # for the supposed shipping/freight-forwarding company - Can Move. He called Can Move. Again, the phone was answered with "hello" and the addition of a lot of laughter in the background (are you starting to get suspicious?? we sure were!). After a short but heated discussion he hung up and called John back. 


If you know Arch, you know he is not the most gracious person in the world when he is angry. This conversation ended with John cancelling the order. 


I immediately emailed Groupon asking for a refund, which I received within 24 hours. By the time I got to Paypal our payment for shipping had been refunded - by John I suppose.


Nasafoam has a very fancy website and looks like a real and successful company, but I guess looks can be deceiving. Can Move appears to be non-existent. Here is the BBBs listing for them. We have no gripe with Groupon. We use them frequently and this was our first difficult experience. However, I do feel they should vent the companies they do business with a little better. And their complaint procedure could be more efficient.


After all this, we then got on the phone and found a company, right here in Halifax, Comfort Foam and Fibre, that custom cuts and makes foam mattresses to size. Very nice people. We got exactly what we needed within two days. It is not memory foam, but but it is extremely comfortable and cost only $800 tax included. The moral of the story: SHOP LOCAL whenever you can.


So here we are all moved in and very comfortable. I will write more about our first days in our new digs tomorrow. For now, here is Princess enjoying the new bed.

A Great Week of Planning

Now that the baby is here the work has begun. We really accomplished quit a bit so far:

• Don't laugh but we hired a decorator to advise us and help redo the interior. We are planning to make mostly cosmetic changes and think a pair of trained eyes will be helpful. So now we are awaiting her recommendations.
• At the flooring store Arch found someone to advise him on how to install the wood floor. This young fellow just finished helping his father-in-law install a floor in his motorhome and volunteered to do a plan for Arch. 
• We (Arch in the drivers seat, me from the passenger seat - I do my best driving here :) ) have driven it 3 times on the roads around the neighbourhood and feel quite confident now. Our local roads are very narrow, twisty and hilly so I doubt if we will ever run into any more difficult to manoeuvre. This also means Arch has backed it up our 450 ft. driveway 3 times - again, probably the most difficult backing-up he will need to do.
• A very mechanically experienced neighbour dropped in and spent 2 hours going over every inch of the motorhome. Thanks Langis. Mechanically, she is in excellent condition and needs only some minor fixes, which Arch is working on.
• She has received her Canadian seal of approval and Nova Scotia Motor Vehicle Inspection sticker so anything we do from here on in is cosmetic.

It's a long, long, narrow, rock-lined driveway to back up

Today it is freezing raining/snowing here so we are sitting around waiting for spring. According to the weather people we will be golfing this weekend. Can hardly wait.

30 cm Snow in Nova Scotia??

Under the category "don't believe everything you hear" , this morning our NATIONAL broadcasting network - the CBC - is telling us that Nova Scotia is buried in 30 cm of snow and we are all busy digging out. This is what 30 cm of snow looks like where we are:

St Margaret's Bay, Nova Scotia Feb 20, 2012

I just checked the Nova Scotia Webcams site and Northern Nova Scotia did get a lot of snow but to say that all of Nova Scotia is buried by a blizzard is like saying that all of Southwestern Ontario is snowed in when ski country gets a storm!! Don't you just love the Toronto-centric CBC?

Eagle Viewing

Eagle watching is an annual affair in Nova Scotia. Each year the Sheffield Mills Community Association and the Blomidon Naturalist Society host  Eagle Watch Weekends in the Annapolis Valley in late January early February. This is one such weekend so we gathered the family together to headed out to have some fun. You should get there between 8 and 10 am to see the most eagles as that is when the local chicken farmers feed them, but we are a large family and it is difficult to get everyone organized that early on Saturday morning. So we arrived about 11 and managed to see several of the beautiful birds without the crowds in the official "viewing areas". My pictures are not the best as I have a simple point and shoot Casio Exilim camera - a new SLR camera is on my want list for our great adventure. I plan to go and take lessons and learn a bit about photography after I get the camera.

As we drove by we spotted several bald eagles and red-tailed hawks in these trees, with not a person in sight. Perfect.

The big birds were smart enough to stay high in the trees and were not bothered by our presence.

A little further down the road we spotted eagles having lunch in a farm field. These two did not seem pleased to share.

So the poor fellow stayed to one side as another came to join the group.

They weren't letting him too close to the food either.

The eagles were no longer at the official viewing site but some photographers were still photographing a few flying in the distance.

Then it was off to enjoy the pancake lunch offered by the Sheffield Community Association. Arch is missing from the picture as he stayed home with a cold.

After lunch some of us went shopping at Frenchy's in Coldbrook :). The dads took the kids to the Robot Programming Competition at Acadia University. Jonah, our lego building robot fanatic, is 8, one year short of being able to enter the competition so he contented himself building a robot from the boxes of lego that were at the entrance to the competition floor.

There were a lot of competitors.

We will miss these family outings next winter.