Winterizing our Car Part 1

Before we shipped our car, we had to research winterizing our car. We don't know much about driving or living in the snow (obviously), so this list is probably no where near complete, however, these are some of the upgrades my husband did to our Nissan Pathfinder before we shipped it.

First, he bought all terrain tires. He researched and bought Goodyear Duratrac Tires. He read on a few forums that they are really good in snow and that they are pretty quiet on the road. Driving it around in Hawaii, I was surprised that they are pretty quiet. On my husband's older truck he had put on some mud tires and those where LOUD. I was happy with how quiet these are.



My husband also put a 2" lift on the Pathfinder. He got a kit from www.4x4parts.com and did it himself.

Next he got Yakima Rail Grabs for the top of the car. I can't remember what size bars he got, but this is the brand:

Shipping our car from Hawaii to California

We shipped our car through Pasha Hawaii. We had 3 choices: Matson, Horizon Lines and Pasha Hawaii. My husband liked Pasha because they ship in a fully enclosed ship (lessen the damage done by the salt water during the shipping), plus you can pick up in San Diego or Covina in Southern California. We wanted to avoid having to drive to Long Beach to pick up the car. They actually have a ton of locations for pick up and can even do door to door service. It took a little longer than Matson or Horizon because they do stop in Pearl Harbor before departing, they do a lot of shipping for the military. Plus we found out later, that our PODS shipments will go on a Pasha ship also.

About Us

I figured I'd tell you a little about us and why we would decide to move from Hawaii. My husband and I decided to start a retail business 8 years ago. We didn't have any money to start it, so we did it the not so smart way and charged almost everything. We did well within a short amount of time and that became our full time jobs. We worked 6-7 days a week. We worked late, whatever it took.

We bought a house, had kids and basically burnt out. We were working so hard to pay for the house and the cars. Plus trying to balance time with the business and the kids. We found that we were basically just putting our son to bed and waking him up. We were missing all of the fun in between. He went to daycare/preschool during the week and my mom would babysit on the weekends. I felt like everyone else was raising our son. We talked about selling the company and moving, we flew to visit a few places to "research". When our daughter was born, we instantly knew that we needed the change now!

We had loads of debt plus a $500,000 mortgage. We were just scraping by. Basically living "paycheck to paycheck". We knew we needed to do something. We were so tired of working for what seemed to be to pay for our house and childcare. Luckily our business was still doing well. We called a business broker and sold the business, sold our house, paid off all of our debt and here we are :o) I can't tell you what a relief it is to finally be debt free.

Time to start packing!!!

Our container for our move came today. We decided to use PODS to move all our stuff. We are really happy with their service so far. It was so easy. We made a reservation and they came and dropped off the POD. We can take as long as we like to load everything up. The total shipping time they estimated at 3 to 6 weeks depending on the loads from the military (they have first priority of course). Moving is challenging, but, moving from Hawaii adds a few more challenges. We chose PODS because we are moving with no place to go :o). We are waiting to find a rental when we get there. PODS gave us the flexibility to have it go to their storage facility if we are still in a hotel when our stuff gets there.

Introduction

I'm a mom of 2 young children, my 3 year old son and 18 month old daughter. My husband and I decided to sell our business, sell our house and move our family from Hawaii to Colorado. Crazy I know! But, we are born and raised in Hawaii. We have wanted to move for so long now. Now we are finally doing it. Why move from "paradise"??? Well, we are tired of the traffic, lack of good schools and the cost of living. This is just our story, so please no negative comments. We want to share our journey to help others by posting tips about moving and traveling with young children.