Halloween is a big holiday in our family. It could be argued that it is the biggest holiday. Our kids love Halloween and Crystal loves working on all the costumes! The family costume tradition started in 2014 with Brielle’s first Halloween and has continued since then. I think Crystal will do it has long as the kids will let her!
As a lead up to Halloween, the kids always like getting some Halloween themed shirts. Crystal then creates a card for them to send out to our families to celebrate one of their favorite holidays!
As part of our trip to Boston, we decided we need a good activity to keep the kids occupied! On Saturday afternoon, we headed to Canobie Lake Park just across the border in New Hampshire. Canobie Lake is your classic amusement park with lots of rides but it also featured a great kids zone. This area featured smaller rides that you would find at a fair rather than roller coasters which our kids are not big enough for. We spent the afternoon and evening riding everything and the kids had a great time!
Crystal’s brother Bill and his wife Meaghan welcomed their second daughter Maeve to the world earlier this year. We went to go visit them and stayed with her brother Jesse and his wife Kaitlyn in Dracut, Massachusetts. The kids loved getting to see their cousin Nora as well as getting to meet their new cousin Maeve.
In September of 2017, I went on my first trip to Moscow to work on finding Carter’s an official partner who could represent us in Russia. There is a lot of demand for Carter’s in Russia and with no official representative we saw entering this market as a big opportunity.
After two years, and a lot of hard work by our official partner in Russia we were launching our first store! Earlier this year, out partner launched their website: cartersoshkosh.ru but now it was time to open the store at the Mega Teply Stan mall in Moscow.
After spending some time training the store staff we left the mall and headed north out of the city on a special excursion.
Our partner in Russia, Dmitri happens to be an avid hot air balloon racer. When he invited us to add this to our itinerary I was a little skeptical but decided an opportunity like this does not present itself very often so we agreed. I had never been in a hot air balloon before but it was an incredible experience that I will not forget.
After the balloon ride, we headed back to the center of Moscow where we were staying at the Marriott Royal Aurora Hotel which is just a short walk from red square. The weather was perfect and combined with the great architecture of Moscow it created for some great scenery.
Moscow has become one of my favorite cities in the world. The center of Moscow, anchored by red square, is an incredible sight especially at night when it is all lit up.
I never imagined I would find myself in Russia for work or even a personal trip. If you get the opportunity, I highly recommend it!
Next stop Poland on this trip.
We spent most of the week moving the smaller boxes to our new house but today is officially moving day! We hired Peachtree Movers to move all the big stuff and furniture. It was a long day but we got it all done and now we just need to start unpacking everything! Loving the new neighborhood and location so far.
With Brielle going into Kindergarten this year, we knew that we wanted to move to East Cobb for the great public schools. We had been casually looking for the past couple years but at the end of 2018 we hired our realtor and got serious.
By this point we had already seen a lot of properties on our own and knew exactly what we were looking for. The criteria we were looking for:
When this house came on the market we quickly made an offer (along with 3 others) but luckily our offer won and we went under contract. The only downside to this house, was that the seller wanted to close on April 30th and then wanted a temporary occupancy through May as she had a graduating senior from Walton. Not an ideal situation but we were willing to make the compromise for this house.
We closed on April 30th as planned and then started working on selling 6101 Queens River Drive! We officially got the keys on May 22nd and started moving the boxes until the movers did all the furniture on June 1st.
In November of 2016, I was promoted to be the Vice President of International for Carter’s, OshKosh, and Skip Hop where I have responsibility for our international business outside of North America.
Before I get into the details of the international business, a little context on Canada and Mexico. In 2011 Carter’s acquired its Canadian licensee and in 2017 Carter’s acquired its Mexican licensee. These acquisitions were existing wholesale customers and the acquired businesses became subsidiaries of CRI. Canada and Mexico now operate as divisions of Carter’s North American Retail group.
The Carter’s international business is a diverse and widely distributed operation. We now have partners representing us in almost 100 countries with over 1,000 points of sale around the world. The primary business model is we sell product wholesale to partners who then represent us locally with free standing stores, eCommerce sites, and their own wholesale distribution businesses.
We have country partners all over the world including Brazil, Chile, Europe, Indonesia, China, India, and the Middle East. There are not many major markets where we do not have some type of presence. I have overall P&L responsibility for the division and am involved in all aspects of the business including Sales, eCommerce, Marketing, Merchandising, and Operations.
I spend a lot of time in the air and on the road. With two little kids at home, this can be difficult but my wife Crystal is incredibly supportive. I do have to remind myself that there are very few people who get to see as much of the world as I have. Over the past 3 years, I have been fortunate to have visited 35+ countries where we are represented. Delta is my hometown airline and they do a great job of getting me to most places that I need to go!
Below are some pictures of the international stores and websites that we have opened in 2019
On September 7th 2016, at 12:28pm we welcomed Brendan Andrew Knight to the world! He was a month early but weighed in at 7lbs 4oz and 19in. Big sister Brielle can hardly contain her excitement
Since I bought this car in 2016 a lot has changed with the Tesla CPO program so some of this is no longer valid on 2/3/20. After 4 years and 45k miles it is still the best car I have ever owned!
After driving my Nissan Leaf electric car for two years, I never wanted to go back to driving a gasoline powered car! So when the lease was up on the Leaf I decided to upgrade to a used Tesla Model S. This is the story of that purchase along with my feedback on the Tesla Certified Pre-Owned sales process which had a few bumps along the way.
A friend of mine has a Tesla Model S P85 that I took on a 50mi trip so I was pretty familiar with the driving experience. I ended up taking 2 short test drives one in a P85 and another in a 70D. Harry & Cale at the Decatur, Atlanta store were great and answered all my questions. After the test drive I decided that I wanted a P85, pano roof, tech package, black leather interior, any color except white or red, and my budget was mid $50’s. I would prefer the 19” wheels but would do 21’s if it had my other options. I stalked ev-cpo.com for the next two weeks waiting for the right car to come up. I also worked with Brent Seavy out of the Chicago store who helped me look on Tesla’s internal system. I realized quickly that the best cars go FAST (as in same day) so you have to be ready. Finally on 12/18 a car in San Francisco popped up on ev-cpo.com and I put my deposit down 30 minutes after it was posted to the site! Here are the specs:
2013 Tesla Model S P85 in Metallic Silver with 18,500 miles
Options: Pano | 21″ Silver Wheels | Black Performance Interior | Carbon Fiber | Twin Charger | Tech Package | Active Air Suspension | Sound Studio
My Nissan LEAF lease was up at the end of December so I needed the car by Jan 4th. I made this timeline clear to everybody at Tesla who I was working with and was told an early January delivery could be expected. After my deposit was placed the early January estimate was confirmed again. This is where the buying experience really goes south for Tesla. What I came to find out is that Tesla lists the cars on the CPO site as soon as they take them in and not after they have gone through reconditioning! I understand they are trying to manage cash flow with this approach but they should set the expectations on the CPO site that delivery will take 4-5 weeks and not “Buy Pre-Owned Today”. With my previous CPO cars I drove them off the lot the same day. Communication during this time period was also weak. Not sure if the fault lies with the factory, San Francisco, or Atlanta. My car did not enter re-conditioning until 12/31, shipped on 1/11, and I took delivery on 1/19. During this time I ended up having to rent a car for two weeks which I was not exactly happy about.
I took delivery at the Marietta showroom. My biggest concern during this process was buying the car sight unseen without any pictures and no idea of the condition. I did receive a clean Carfax and was continually assured that the car would be in outstanding condition and would be the “best looking used car I had ever purchased”
I had a checklist of things in hand to go over and had also read a lot of the great advice from the Tesla forums of things to look over. Unfortunately I found a number of issues that frankly should have been caught well before I ever saw the car:
Ugh. I debated not taking delivery but the service team documented all of the above and added it to the due bill and promised that it would all be taken care of. I certainly took a leap of faith and decided to take delivery. If I had to do it over again I probably should have just sucked it up and walked away until they got everything fixed. Although the above list was disappointing, the rest of the car was in VERY good condition. Overall paint condition was excellent, interior looked like nobody had sat in it other than the driver’s seat, new tires were put on, brakes and rotors did not have any corrosion etc.
Tesla got me booked into service a few days later to start working on things. The valet service was great! They had the car for almost a week to take care of #1-5 with most of the time spent at the body shop taking care of the scratches. When I got the car back I was 100% satisfied with the work. The paint issues were all addressed, the chrome pieces were replaced, handle replaced, the hood alignment was much better. I took some detailed pictures that day so if you want to see the condition of the car you can see them all here:
https://andrewknight.smugmug.com/2016/2013-Tesla-Model-S/
For #7 and #8 they needed to order some parts that came in this week and today they replaced the torn center console part and the lower portion of the driver’s seat. Now that the driver seat has been replaced the interior looks brand new!
Tesla certainly has some room for improvement here but overall the final condition of the car was much better than any of my prior CPO’s. It took them exactly 2 months from the time I ordered the car to deliver it in final condition but it has been worth the wait!
