Regarding the 6-month renewal thingy.
We have used something similar that you may have been thinking of. My DH's license expires in April (we don't wanna be anywhere near SD in April) and mine expire in July. So he calls the DMV and they send him an official letter EXTENDING the expiration date on his license for 6 months. He carries that with him in his wallet to prove he is still legal even though his license is expired. He doesn't have to provide any paperwork. He is not renewing his license on line, just extending the expiration date so that we can go to SD in the summer instead of in the middle of a snow event.
He has done this twice since we started fulltiming in 2005 and will be doing it again next year when our DL's expire.
I don't know if that would buy you more time to do what you need to do, but wanted to clarify how that works.
Dale