For Ella's Birthday present Ga-Ga & Pa were planning on buying her a new bike. Right before her birthday though she told me her old bike would be just fine and she could make it another year. Because of that Ga-Ga ended up buying Ella her Doll Schoolhouse that she had been saving for for over a year and then Ella used all her savings to buy the other doll stuff she didn't get at her birthday.
Fast forward a few months and lo and behold she says she needs a new bike. As you can imagine I was a little bit upset with her. I told her that I would buy her a bike, but she would have to pay me back. This started us on a journey to find her bike.
We found one on Offer Up that was in Olympia and I told the lady I could come the next day. I gave her my cellphone number and said please text me if anything changes. I'm going to buy the bike, but I don't want to get all the way to Olympia and find out it's been sold.
The next day I pick Ella up from Dial's house and we started heading down. I had messaged the lady letting her know we were on our way. We got all the to JBLM and then she messages me that it was already sold. I was so livid! People suck sometimes! Strike 1!
Ella was devastated and I told her that maybe God was saving her from getting a bike that wasn't really as nice as they said it was. Or maybe the other girl needed it more. I don't know, but things happen for a reason.
After find that bike online Ella was sure she wanted a Huffy Cruiser bike. I found one on Wal-Mart's website and there was 1 left for $96. I went to order it and by the time I did it was already sold. Strike 2!
One Sunday morning, I gave Ella my phone so she could look around. I'm not sure if I ended up finding it or if she did, but we found a bike she liked for $64. I looked up the company and it was in MT so I was like...awesome an American company. I went ahead and purchased the bike for her. The next day I got an email saying that the order was received and once payment was processed they would send another email with the shipping date. I waited a couple days and noticed that the payment had processed, but I hadn't gotten an updated email with the shipping information.
That's when I started researching and found out this company was a total fraud. I even tried to call them and it was an automated message that says...."Some of our customers may be entitled to a special promotion today. If you are over 50 press 1 if you under 50 press 2." I pressed 2 and then is said, "Thank you for taking our survey...goodbye!" I tried to call back and then it said the number was no longer in service. This was when I went online and disputed the charges with our credit card. Thankfully I was smart enough to purchase it with that instead of our debit card. As you can imagine we've never received that bike! Strike 3!
Fast forward to May 17th...I told Ella that we would get her a bike prior to going camping in June. We headed to the smaller Wal-Mart in Federal Way and they had no bikes...Zero! We got back in the van and headed to bigger Wal-Mart in Federal Way. There were no bikes there either. Ella asked if we could talk to someone and ask. I had noticed an employee that was setting up a display so we went to ask him. He told me that they did have bikes...they were all just in the back and had not been put together. I asked him if I could still buy one and he said yes. He went to look in the back for the bike we wanted and he found it. These bikes were showing completely out of stock online so I was so excited and so was Ella. Finally a home run!!!
I also noticed a little cabinet that had a bunch of intertubes for bike tires. We had two bikes that needed new tubes, but I didn't know the size we needed. So that's when I called the boys and had a hilarious conversation with them trying to figure out what size tube we needed. The nice Wal-Mart employee hung out the whole time waiting to find out which size I needed since the cabinet is locked and he had the key. With new bike in tow and 2 new intertubes we were off!
Here's a happy girl!
What you don't see in this picture is the frustration from a Mama that decided to put this thing together while Michael was at a meeting. I love building things...furniture is my jam. Putting this bike together about sent me over the edge!
She loves it though and that's all the matters. She loves the basket and the cup holder. It rides so smooth because of her nice spring seat. It's great!
It's wasn't the cheapest bike it cost $154, but she's going to pay it off. She's already paid a bit off since she had some money saved. She's also done some work and earned money by cleaning out both the van and the truck. I figure it might take her a whole year to finish paying it off, but she'll do it!
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